“There was no horizon. I never thought I would lose the horizon along with everything else , but when you get old you realize whichever direction you choose to face, you find yourself confronted with a landscape filled up with loss.”
Cannon, Joanna. Three Things About Elsie: A Novel (Kindle Locations 75-76). Scribner. Kindle Edition.
A friend was recently criticized because  her behavior was  “age inappropriate.” She had no clue what that meant.  And neither did I.
There are those who retreat at age 65  to their recliner and reruns of “Law and Order,” and those who run marathons at 80.  Those  who
charge madly though life as if defying death,  and others  who monitor each morsel of food and clamber for the latest  anti-aging treatment to avoid crossing its path.  And then there are the motley rest of us who take reasonable care of ourselves and simply hope for the best.
I wasn’t expecting to grow old.  It simply happened when I was busy living my life.  Then one day I looked in the mirror expecting to see my familiar 45 year old self only to find  the tired eyes of a wrinkled old woman staring back at me.
Of course I did know a few things about growing old.  People complained that their friends all died.  That didn’t seem so bad to me when I was 45 because I could always make new friends.  But not now.  No one can replace those friends who have walked though life with you, who know you and love you in spite of it all.  As I write this, a dear friend is dying;  a friend who  cannot be replaced.
I heard old people complaining about their aches and pains; the time and money spent at doctors’ offices. Â But I took pretty good care of myself. Â That wouldn’t be a problem. Â Until it was.
They said they wished they had been better people, made better choices.  I played by the rules;  I made great decisions.  Until viewed  in hindsight.
I thought old people’s  lives became small because they stubbornly refused to engage with the world.  But now I wonder,  did they quit interacting with the world because their lives became small?
When I grew old (assuming I did), I told myself, I would know what to do. Â The usual stereotypes wouldn’t apply to me.
In short, like most people, until I faced old age myself, I had little time for old people and even less understanding of them.
But inevitably, I Â too, found myself in a “landscape filled with loss”, and a life once expansive, now contracting. Â A Â scenario too frightening to contemplate at first. Â For a time it was easier to avoid the mirror, to keep a safe distance from friends who like me were old and getting older. Â But over time, the pretense just became exhausting. Â And ironically the more I quit pretending, the easier it all became.
All lives end. Â A truth I have finally owned, even embraced. Â And ironically it is this truth that provides the perspective I need to do the hard work of right living. Â Something I would have done well to have embraced at 45.
But I still don’t know how to be “age appropriate.” I don’t have a clue. Â I guess we work that out as we go along.
manners, football and looking pretty with little attention to intellect. Â In other words, the Southern Belle.
 And at the end,  for the South, there was bitter defeat and a legacy of shame, poverty and rage
children to raise, they had to be strong to survive.  They  relied on each other;  they formed strong  communities.  Their faith was their only source of  hope through terrible loss and deprivation.  They had to be resourceful to provide for their  basic needs; they made clothing and quilts from draperies, feed sacks, scraps from worn out clothing. Together they birthed their children and buried their dead.  Food was scarce, they had to raise their own; they became expert gardeners and didn’t flinch at killing a chicken or butchering a hog.  They were recyclers before there were recycling bins. The land and its creatures provided their needs and so were respected;  they were environmentalists before Greenpeace.  They found beauty to ease their harsh lives in the things they had;  a rose, a treasured teacup, a button from a favorite dress.
bodies and lack of access to medical care, death in childbirth was common. Â Surviving husbands in need of help with their households remarried as quickly as they could, bringing their children with them, creating small communities. Â All of this in an environment facing epidemics of Yellow Fever, Tuberculosis, Typhoid Fever without antibiotics, immunizations or dentists. Â And don’t forget wars. Â One of my grandmothers (3rd great 1775-1824) Â lost a father and brother in a Tory raid and grandsons to the Civil War.
Day, as it was originally known, honored those who fell in the Civil War.  Union Major-General, John A. Logan is officially credited for the first observance in 1868 at Arlington National Cemetery.  However, some 150 years later,  no one seems to agree on who is really responsible for the first ceremony or where it occurred.
 vacations.  She didn’t wear perfume or go to a beauty shop. Lipstick was her only concession to cosmetics.
everything I could find in our small library.  I was fascinated with faraway  places, exotic religions, unfamiliar life styles and beliefs.  From a small child, I ached to get out in the “real world,” and abruptly left home at my  first opportunity.  It was a foolhardy decision made with all the selfishness and confidence of youth.  Of course I expected Mother to be disappointed, but instead she was profoundly, uncharacteristically, angry. This was not a decision I could not undo, she told me.  Once I crossed the threshold, she told me,  the door would lock behind me.  That shocked and baffled me, still does.  But I knew she meant what she said and anyway, I couldn’t imagine wanting to go back.
ignored awards, expressed no interest in my accomplishments.  All  contact between us was one-way.  She rarely visited; she never called or wrote.  Nothing I did seemed to interest her.  I get it, I thought. I blew my chance when I rejected her and her way of life.
our first role model, the architect of those first deep wrinkles in our  developing brains.  Regardless of what we think or  what we tell ourselves, our mothers matter to us, will always matter, probably much more than we realize.
On this Mothers Day, I wish I could re-live the times I hurt and disappointed my mother. I wish we had understood each other better;  that we could have been close.  But at the end of the day,  the maternal bond  prevailed and over the years we developed  a companionable, if not affectionate relationship.  We had some good years.