May 29, 2019

Today is the day my brother and his wife celebrate their 54th wedding anniversary. It’s also the anniversary of my parent’s marriage, who were wed in 1942.

My mother didn’t often speak of my dad, who died when I was eight and a half years old. When she did, I paid attention. I recall her telling me that she and Dad had lived their lives as if they had all the time in the world, when in fact, in the end, they’d had just a little more than twenty-one years together. As a wife who will be celebrating the 47-year mark of my own marriage in July, that seems an incredibly short amount of time. My father was the love of my mother’s life. After my father’s passing, my mother never dated, never even considered the possibility of doing so. She died thirteen years and three months after my dad. They weren’t married all that long, and they didn’t, either of them, live all that long; my dad never saw 50, and my mom never saw 60.

It’ll be my 65th birthday one week to the day after our 47th anniversary. In Canada, that’s the age at which, the month following, you begin to get a paycheck from the government for still being alive. Here in Ontario, we collect the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), the amount per month based on our contributions to this point. We also collect OAS – old age security. That is a basic amount, which is the same for everyone—right now, about $602.00 per month.

I never contributed the maximum amount allowable by law to the CPP, (your contribution is based on your wage and I was never a high wage earner), so I’ll likely see somewhere between 600 to 800 per month for that pension. Not a bad wage to draw, I suppose, for the sometimes onerous task of breathing.

Our expenses are less now than they used to be; scooters aside, we really don’t need much or want much, for that matter. Things don’t hold the allure for us as once they did. We understand more now, being older, the things which are of real value in life.

It’s not material things that matter, but people and relationships. It’s not receiving things that matters but giving them. It’s not speaking your mind that counts the most but listening to another who needs to share and may have no one but you who will listen.

When I was 48, I was in a hospital cath-lab, undergoing an angioplasty procedure, when the surgeon had an “oops”. He’d torn an artery, and they had no choice but to rush me into surgery (down the hall and up several floors) for a triple by-pass. I was lucky to survive, and I’ve been conscious of that fact ever since. In the aftermath of the surgery, I knew I wasn’t done here, in this life. I had more yet that was expected of me.

To the best of my ability and with God’s help, I’ve been working that mission ever since.

People will attest that age is just a number, and in some ways, that’s true. We still recall, inside of ourselves, what it was like, being younger—moving better, thinking better—and so in some respects we feel as if we are still that same person, inside. Underneath the creaky muscles and the painful joints, we don’t feel old. We don’t feel different, or “other”. We feel like…. well, we feel like ourselves.

I believe that aging itself doesn’t change us fundamentally; rather, if there are changes, they come from the sights seen, the voices heard, and the experiences lived. You hear older folks say, more often than not, “don’t sweat the small stuff.” That’s because they know darn well that there is big stuff coming, which makes all the little irritations appear as nothing.

My husband and I both believe at this point in our lives, our focus should be on doing the good we can do, and making sure to take the time to smell the roses—or at this particular moment in my garden, the lilies-of-the-valley. I have a few sprigs beside me as I write this, and their perfume is wonderful.

And also, one more thing—and that’s to follow the advice given to and shared by King Edward VIII: never miss an opportunity to relieve yourself; never miss a chance to sit down and rest your feet. 

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury