Grand Old Time

Time flashes by and suddenly the newborns are past six-months-old. The first to be born is now nearly a year old. Wrapped in the throes of growth and development, they continually morph into new little creatures, delighting those around them with antics sweet, silly, savvy, and smart (the sad and sour antics don’t delight, even though they’re part of each morph).

As the rapid pace of time allows these creatures to evolve into increasingly complex beings, I’m acutely aware that I am, myself, no longer growing nor am I developing. In fact, I’m shrinking and UNdeveloping!

I have trouble accepting that my children are now adults. Why is it impossible to remember how I was able to simultaneously care for three small humans under five years of age? When did those little people who crawled up on my lap become big enough to hold me on theirs? How can it be so long ago that I raced among field divots and cow flops to answer the hysterical screams of my children tree-ed by the neighbor’s Rottweiler? Why does it seem like only yesterday that I was calling them into dinner as they galloped on phantom horses through the larches along the neighbors’ hay field? They’ve had spouses of their own for years, and now they have CHILDREN of their own. And we – my husband and me – have happily become engaged in a new and glorious life role as GRANDPARENTS!

I want so much to be present for all of the children of my children. I’m one person, though, and unable to clone myself. I can only be with one baby and one of my children – now a parent – at a time. That is, unless I can get them all in the same place together.

We’ve all been together once, since all three little creatures were born. My daughter and her husband – parents to the first to be born – now have a house larger than mine. They were able to have her brothers, their wives, and the two who came 16 and 18 weeks after the first, along with my husband and me, at their home for a holiday celebration. Daughter/Son-in-Law/Firstborn Little Creature and Son1/Daughter-in-Law/Middle Little Creature were able to join many of the family members on their father’s side for a ski vacation recently. We stayed in condos designated for the families of each 1st generation sibling. As Oldest Son, my husband rated a corner condo away from noise generated by other family members, as well as strangers – or maybe to keep his wife (me) from interfering with the others… ? Somehow, though, it always seemed as if we weren’t complete, probably because we weren’t: Son2/Daughter-in-Law/Youngest Little Creature weren’t present, precluded by job responsibilities. I’m with them now, feeling the need to be with the youngest of my clan as much as with the older two and their families.

Nevertheless, I’m 30+ years older than my own children, and nearly 30 more years older than any of their little ones. I’m stiffer now, not so spry. My joints scream at all of the up-and-down that I once was able to manage without any ill effects. I seem to contract every one of their infantile illnesses, as if my own immune system has devolved to the level of their evolving ones.

I’m aging – no doubt about it! I admit it, but I abhor it. I may come to accept it, but I don’t know if I’ll ever embrace it. While writing this post, I thought about several domains of aging: physical, mental/cognitive, social, emotional, and lifestyle. In fact, several years ago, the Global Aging Research Network (GARNet) developed an index used to determine the factors that affect what allows individuals to age favorably.

(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1364512/)

In this series of posts, each of the domains will be considered from a personal perspective.