Decades

 

As I approach another decade birthday I am again pondering.  The meaning of life?  Maybe.  

Death?  Definitely.  More and more friends have died and are dying.  All of my parents and Nick's parents are dead.   My mother's younger sister, my Aunt Geri and her husband are both dead now.  They both died in the same calendar year.

 My mom's been gone for almost 20 years now.  But somehow I never imagined a world without my Aunt Geri.  And neither could Uncle John. He was bereft and lost without her and I think he faced death gladly.

So, I have been many different versions of myself.   First as a baby.  Always near my mother.  The youngest of three. 

When I turned 10, I remember having a birthday party.  My mom made a cake and the candle holders on the cake looked like horses on a carousel.  There are pictures somewhere.  I remember wearing party hats and having friends there.  Donna Gallo would have been there and another girl named Jolene.   I don't know who else. 

This is me at age 10 with cousins Geri-next to me, then Cheryl, Jane and Vicky

 

I may be a bit older than 20, but pretty close.  On the front porch of a house we lived in briefly, in Chiang Mai, Thailand

 

 

 

 

 

I was 30 when Darcy was born in 1984  Here we are at Dulles Airport on the way to Tromsø, Norway where Darcy was born

 

 When I was 40, Chance and I participated, with the family, in a La Leche League event on the National Mall 1994

 

 

 

 

 

 

I graduated from George Mason University in 2004 at the age of 50- just a few weeks after my mother died.  She did get to see me in my cap and gown- I took them to the hospital for her to see

 

As I approached my 60th birthday I pondered life.  Then I learned that I had a brain tumor and suddenly I didn't feel so old.  I thought that I was too young to die. So I had brain surgery. And I didn't die!

 

 

 

 

And here I am, pondering again. 6 weeks away from my 70th birthday.  My hair is completely gray.  When I get a haircut I always marvel at the gray hair that falls on the black cover I wear for the hair cut  and wonder who's gray hair it could be.   How did that happen?   What's next?