A view from the sky tram in Jasper on a family holiday
'SHow old would you be, if you didn’t know how old you are? That was the question we were asked when we were taking the ‘Aging with Grace’ seminar (see 26 April blog). Immediately, I thought of my mother. What a wonderful mother she was. Even when she had increasing memory loss, we could learn from her. For one thing she was a youthful thinker.
When you have memory loss, there is no room for pretenses, although she never was one for pretense. "What you see is what you get." Mother lived in our home for five months when she was eighty-five. We loved to ask her, “How old are you, Mother?” She always replied, “Twenty-four”. Mom never lied. It was what she believed about herself. What a delightful response. After she moved from us, she went to live with another one of her daughters and her family. One evening her adult grandson had a group of 'Singles' over and they were gathered around the piano singing. Mom was in the adjacent family room with my sister and her husband. Mother loved music and the singing continually drew her into the next room to join the young people. Several times Norma got up and gently invited her back to the family room where they were watching TV. About the third time, Chris, the grandson, indicated to just leave her with them. He put his arm around her and said to her, “I love you, Grandma.” By now ‘Grandma’ had become her name rather than a relationship. She quickly pulled away and informed him that there were “other fish in the sea”. She thought he was putting the moves on her. I would like to be like she was with an ever-youthful attitude (without the memory loss, of course). Thank you, Mother, for the wonderful example. How old would you be, if you didn’t know how old you are? How old would you like to be?
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