Tag Archives: mother

Fearless Aging

The Way It is

By Irene Noble 

My mother, my friend, died when she was 91. I miss her still, yet it was eighteen years ago.  She was a beautiful, elegant, stylish lady. More than that, she was forgiving, uncomplicated by her total honesty, always willing to learn new ways, new directions even though it might require a reversal of old assumptions.

When our family gathers around a Christmas tree,
a dinner table or backyard barbeque, we usually bring in to our
conversation the people who are no longer with us. We laugh at moments
we remember, we cherish the time they were here and, sometimes, we mock
the things they used to say. My mother summed up just about everything
with these words, “That’s the way it is.” I can’t count the times we
have all laughed and said in unison when

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Fearless Aging

I Am Not My Photograph

By Marilyn Kentz | Bio | Website

It was my last day of my week-long vacation and I was back in Berkeley visiting my 22-year-old daughter and her boyfriend. I was meeting my husband there, as we had gone in two different directions for the last part. It was the boyfriend’s 24th birthday and she had made plans for the two of them to go out to a romantic dinner. Since we had extended our stay by one day, I insisted they keep their original plans. No need to politely drag Mommy along. I told her I would start cooking the pasta salad she wanted to bring on their picnic the next day.

By
7:30 it must have been 99 degrees in her cute little upstairs
apartment. The Bay Area population expects—no, counts on—the morning
fog and the evening sea breeze to keep their fresh air perfect in the
summer. With our diminishing ozone, I fear this sweltering day was only
a taste of things to come. And since they only rely on natural air
conditioning, there was not so much as a fan in sight. My head was
dripping.

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Fearless Aging

Mother

In loving memory of my mother, Ruth Selman (1920-2007), who passed away this morning at 11:20 am.

I am distracted by thoughts of dying, My actions blown away on wasted winds of imagination and thoughts I cannot think or speak.

I celebrate tomorrow and yearn for yesterdays,

The weakness of a restless soul longing for realities unlived and lost forever in the desert of forgotten dreams.

I am longing to disappear in a transcendent moment,

Able to relate in a comforting embrace and forget the lost moments of unexperienced possibilities and unconsummated potential.

I am too many people in too many times,

Filled with the pain of seeking what cannot be sought and hoping for resolution of unasked questions that have no answers.

I have circumnavigated the Universe eight times and seven,

Being both lighthearted and a dark cloud without reason, knowing only that I AM and always will be searching, without sleep or time to rest.

I am movement itself, without form or fashion, direction or goal,

Forever trapped in this prison of time and space, physical without form and spiritual without Being or power beyond myself.

I am beyond mere words—a silence embracing the absence of sound.

Rebirth isn’t possible when we cannot die or find an ending to the process we began so long ago—before we knew the cost of time.

I am Yesterday, Tomorrow and Forever, surrounding both life and death,

Now cannot be me, but it is all there is, and therefore I am not and never was—until someone finds me waiting for them for all eternity. read more