THIS COULD BE THE START
OF SOMETHING GRAND
A Widow Bit – May 14, 2010
By Mary Koch

Kingsland, England – Sixty-six. 66! I celebrated a birthday this week while enjoying England’s idyllic countryside. As birthdays go, 66 isn’t especially significant. Each morning, though, as I awake I marvel: “I am 66 years old!” My second thought: “So what’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?”

            I don’t feel 66, however 66 is supposed to feel. I remember my grandparents in their 60s, and I’m certain that neither I nor my contemporaries look or act that old. I searched the names of celebrities who join me in the Birth Class of ’44 and found both John Kerry and Newt Gingrich. OK. So maybe we do look to be in our 60s.

            The group also includes names of those who represent a perpetual teen legacy of my era: Sandra Dee, Tuesday Weld, Kathy Lennon. And then there’s Frank Sinatra Jr. Imagine being 66 and still having to carry the “Jr.” sobriquet. I’m afraid it’s his for life.

            Last year a single, 66-year-old woman in England made headlines by giving birth, thanks to in vitro fertilization. She had the IVF procedure in another country because it’s against the law for women over 50 here. It was her first child, and after a couple weeks she did what any successful career woman would do – turned the baby over to a nanny and went back to the office. Her son’s name is Jolyon, which reportedly means “young at heart.”

            I’ve never had a child, and the thought of doing so at this age has no appeal. There are other ways, rich ways, for women to express their nurturing talents. I have never felt deprived because I missed out on the experience of child birth. Perhaps that’s what caregiving is about—an opportunity to comprehend those maternal pains.

            I also do not understand, much less appreciate, all the hoo-haw and snickering that accompanies birthdays after a certain age. Why try to hide, make fun of or deny age? I’m proud of my years; I celebrate the blessing of having lived them and the privilege of looking forward to yet another.

            A friend said she wouldn’t mind living her life over again if she could start out with the wisdom she’d gained through the years. Ah, but there’s the rub. You earn that wisdom only by living, one year at a time.

            My 66th year promises no particular milestone, unlike the Medicare eligibility that accompanied 65. The number itself, however, is intriguing—redundant and divisible. I’m neither mathematician nor numerologist, but I like playing around with 66. Divide it into three segments—22, 44, 66, add an equal segment—and that’s pretty much my life expectancy. I may be at the threshold of the final quartile of my life.

            I like that idea, being at a threshold again. Peeking through the door, wondering what is inside this new room, what adventures and discoveries. Maybe I’m feeling my age after all. It’s a feeling of delicious anticipation.

            English air can do that for you.