The Other Side of Middle Age

It was a coincidence bordering on grace.

I came across this blog post and the photograph to the left on the same day.

Please read the blog post.

Himself and I will be seventy on our next birthday. Seventy. Married forty-seven years already and talking about fifty coming up in just the blink of an eye. If we are lucky.

"Grow old with me; the best is yet to be." A lovely, sentimental thought. Brings to mind those twin bathtubs on the beach in the Cialis commercial.

One of my Circle sisters has passed away. Three are widows. Among the Good Guys, two have lost husbands and one seems mighty frail.

Yesterday I heard from a long-time friend that her husband will be undergoing extensive surgery in the coming week, surgery for a cancer that would scare the bejesus out of me. My good neighbor has come out of the hospital after a life-threatening bout of acute congestive heart failure; she has graduated this week from physical therapy, but I wonder what the ongoing strain of caring for her at-least-91-year-old husband will do.

If you google "elderly couple embracing" and click on images, you'll see a whole slew of photos of people who are thinking about getting into their twin bathtubs. Every hair is in place. They smile broadly. There are no wrinkles. No horrid age spots.

I look at him and am reminded of the "widow maker" heart attack of six years ago. I'm well aware of the ongoing visits to the dermatologist who deals with the skin cancers -- two of the three kinds -- that are running rampant.

We're on the other side of middle age.