I turned fifty this year and it hasn’t been as traumatic as I once imagined it would be. I think it’s more the number that I mind than the age itself. It may have something to do with a distinct memory I have of a conversation between my brother and my grandmother. My brother, Mike, was probably about five years old at the time. He and I were in the back seat of my mother’s car, my mother and grandmother were in the front. We were riding along in relative quiet when suddenly Mike leaned forward over the seat and asked my grandmother how old she was. My grandmother (we called her Gommy) was the sweetest woman who ever lived—really, you would have loved her. Gommy turned around to Mike and patted his little hand and said, “Well, I’m fifty, Honey.”
Mike looked at her with a big, wide-eyed expression and said, with complete seriousness and concern in his voice, “Woooooo, Gommy! You won’t be around much longer, will you?”
Gommy proved him wrong, living to the ripe old age of 92, but that little snippet of conversation stuck with me all these years. I told that story to countless people over the years and giggled right along with them, but the closer I got to 50, the less often I told the story.
Now, here I am at fifty myself and I am discovering, just as I’m sure Gommy did, that grandchildren have a way of keeping you humble. At my fiftieth birthday party, when my grandson Aiden, who is five, asked how old I was and was told that I was fifty, he responded with a wide-eyed look. That was nothing compared to his reaction when his mother told him that being fifty meant that I was half of one hundred. He said, in all his five-year-old-innocence, “Wow, Mimi that’s OLD! Are you sure you’re really 50?”
A few weeks prior to the party, my three-year-old granddaughter, Olivia, was sitting in my lap, looking up at my face. Suddenly, she reached up and started to stick her finger in my nose. I stopped her, “Oh Olivia, don’t put your finger in Mimi’s nose.” To which she replied, “I just wanted to get those spider webs out of your nose.” Oh my gosh—spider webs?
I’m also discovering, just as I know my grandmother did, that there is nothing quite like the wonder of grandchildren to take the sting out of getting older. Who cares that I’m not as young as I once was? I have three grandchildren whose eyes light up when they see me; three precious grandchildren who melt my heart daily and make me feel like the most important person in the world.
I always wondered why Gommy just laughed when Mike insinuated that she was near death when she told him she was 50. Now I know that she understood the kind of joy only grandchildren can bring and age wasn’t a concern to her. She knew what was important and I believe my grandchildren have taught me that as well.
