You soon forget this chilly reminder of your mortality, though, as you look forward to the next thing. The anticipation of what might come, possibilities good or bad, family commitments, career changes, maybe a divorce, an illness, a move. As time passes, faster and faster, you occasionally stop to fret about the increasing gray in your hair, aches in your joints, diminishing eyesight, reduced enthusiasm for late night parties. You catch yourself staring incredulously at groups of teenagers dressed in this year's chic and wondering "What are they Thinking!?"
But still there are things to do, plans to make for next year's summer cruise, for the birth of a grandchild, arranging for elder care for your parents in addition to the usual round of cleaning and shopping and cooking and fixing. You are fully booked and longing for two consecutive days with nothing to do.
By and by you get news that one of your classmates has died of breast cancer. Soon enough conversations with your contemporaries seem to start and end with a catalog of who has what disease, and who is still alive. Then Ted, your husband of 50 years, has a massive stroke out back trimming the privet hedge and is gone. Suddenly the world is a different place.
After the funeral, you realize that no one is asking you to do anything for them. You have no plans for next week, much less next summer. In fact, you have no future worth mentioning, in spite of the assurances of your children that you are a beloved and valuable member of the family. All that remains is your long past which you can only meaningfully share with your contemporaries who are rapidly diminishing in both faculties and numbers.
You long to reminisce with somebody else who was there about the little carnivals that came around in the summer, about the polio scare when your children were in school, about Rocky, your beloved little Schnauzer, Christmases when the kids were small, those anxious autumn days during the Cuban Missile Crisis. All the things that mattered to you are so far removed from the lives of those around you now, Harry Truman might as well be Odysseus.
You have lost the need to be thought successful. You have lost your interest in money, beyond your daily needs. You love seeing your grandchildren – you can see Ted lurking behind the eyes of Julius and Sally. You love your daughter and your sons, but don't know what to say to them. They resent your suggestions on how to raise their children or how to cook a chicken, but are polite, nod agreeably and then do what they want.
You want to return to places you used to live, expecting them to be the same
You start hearing voices faintly, as if from the other side of a wall, all your old friends along with Ted and your parents, just as you remember them, young and happy. Even the little Schnauzer in his prime.
As the end nears you mistake your daughter for your sister who died 50 years ago. You no longer recognize the children. You ask when Ted will be back. You want to go home.
