Thanks for Getting Old

You’ve reached that age at which sex appeal lies in gray hair. Or, in her case, white hair. Her great-grandmother had snowy white hair, straight like silk. Her curls came from elsewhere, but the white comes from great-grandma Kate. But you prefer the word gray. Let’s talk about gray hair. The beauty of it. The luxury of it. For the first few years, she plucks each one individually. Gradually, she switches to using peroxide to lighten the hairs around it. She looks like a lifeguard in midsummer for a few years. Then eventually, she welcomes it. I finally made it. Who knew I would live this long? I must be blessed. You have it too, maybe. You stand up a little slower now when she calls your name. Your nervous energy is gradually settling into stationary hours at the computer or reading magazines. You know each other’s thoughts without speaking.

Her gray does not exactly pour from her scalp in abundance. Rather, a trickle. A cause for rejoicing. You never thought you would see this day. Neither did she, when the doctors told her parents thirty years ago that her skeletal muscles would never grow again. But here she is. Your miracle. Not a Biblical miracle. Just an ordinary miracle. But it’s yours. Your marvel. Your miracle. The one you share with all her friends.

Three large trees in the yard have bit the dust and been hauled away. A new vineyard puts out its first fruits this year where pet ducks once waddled back and forth, laying eggs in their nests and fucking constantly in their tiny pond. A lilac bush spreads over Old Nevarre’s grave bringing his broken old body back into the daylight, transformed and forever free. Tulips and irises resurrect Daisy and Morty and Clyde, the ugly cat, whose poor rebounding at basketball proved fatal. Near the house, under the azaleas, littermates, Spike and Jaws, lie next to Buttercup, the parakeet, and an unnamed robin who was too tame to fly away when the van backed up. She has outlived so many household pets that her pet cemetery needs grid work and paper records.

She looks out from her porch over one of the more vigorous springtimes in memory. A hard winter has kept everything well-covered until the signal came and all burst forth in a wind swell of pollen and seed and luscious mud. And the cool breeze coaxes her out of door where the sunlight plays in her hair, teasing out its purest reflection in the few but gathering strands whose purpose is to declare triumph, to announce arrival into a new stage of living.

Every moment, every breath is to be cherished. We had a Superman until a moment’s mishap changed all that. You may be young. Too bad. We’ve stood at the graves of too many young people. From the moment of birth, every breath is to be loved. Never take a single one for granted. And when each new growing pain or aging ache comes on . . . be grateful. As each new gray strand of hair sprouts, as each new footstep treads the ground, love it.