Author: Sharron Burnett

Aging gracefully is difficult for people like myself who have always prided themselves in being dynamos of energy. I worked twelve hour days for decades and still kept a spotless home without a maid or any outside assistance. I was able to get by with only a few hours of sleep and still be as sharp as a tack and as eager to do whatever work was in store for the day without making a dent in my abilities to run like a gazelle. I took pride in taking care of people without feeling overwhelmed so now that I am in the later years of my seventieth decade I am disturbed by the reality that I am slowing down. 

I still teach two days a week, write my blogs and keep my home in tip top condition but I do all of it more slowly than I once did. I can scrub the floor in my bathroom and make my sinks glow like they are brand new but that is when I have to rest almost as long as I was laboring before I can move on to the next task. My locomotion is inhibited by arthritic knees and hips that scream at me if I push them for too long. My pace includes a decided limp that causes my smartwatch to warn me that I need to check with a doctor about what to do the fix the problem. 

I’m scheduled for knee replacement on my worst leg in early February and I am already concerned about how long the doctor says it may take for full recovery. It galls me to consider moving around with a walker and then a cane but I will have to adjust to that reality. I have always thought of myself as being tough and admitting that I may finally have a bit of weakness is incredibly difficult for me. I understand that I need to adjust my attitude and learn to live graciously with the new lifestyle that is certainly coming my way. 

Up until recently I was taking care of my ninety six year old father-in-law and worrying about my younger brothers who have had a series of medical set backs. I saw myself as the stalwart who would be able to weather any disastrous situations with those that I love. I spent a summer accompanying my husband to his cancer treatments where I met some wonderful people while I waited while he was getting radiation. I was shocked one day when a nice man urged me to learn how to take care of myself as well. He had noted my limp and had seen me wearing sunglasses after surgery on my eyes. He realized that I was trying to be a soldier about it all and he noted that if I really wanted to be helpful to everyone else I needed to learn how to be accepting to the idea of selfceare. 

I’ve been thinking about that conversation after getting a phone call indicating that my father-in-law had fallen in the residence where he had moved. My first reaction was relief that he was no longer going up and down the stairs in our home to exercise on the treadmill. He and I had been conflicted over that with him insisting that the exercise was good for him and that he was steady on his feet. Sadly my next reaction to his fall was to feel guilty that he was not with us. Then someone mentioned that he probably got the care that he needs much more quickly from the trained staff who answered his call for help immediately and sent him for tests to determine what kind of damage may have been done. 

I suppose that I have been a bit self centered in thinking that I can do everything I did when I was thirty years old. My daughters and even many of my friends have been chiding me for climbing in and out of my attic and balancing on ladders. I am after all seventy seven years old and by any standard that is the mark of an older person. I have probably been putting myself at risk and worrying my children and grandchildren just as I have been worrying over my father-in-law. While I chide him for doing dangerous things I neglect to include myself in taking more precautions than I once did. 

I watch my peers bowing to certain aspects of aging. They do what they can but gracefully accept what they cannot. While I talk a good talk I still take risks that I should no doubt turn over to professionals or at least to my younger relatives. I should be okay with the idea that I don’t have to decorate my entire home inside and out in the space of a few hours. I don’t have to create exotic multi-course meals for Christmas Day. I don’t have to walk five miles before resting. 

I say the good things about having some common sense but then I sneak around like a teenager trying to recreate my days of unbounded energy. Then I fall into bed aching all over because I have been too filled with pride to act my age. I suppose that as the new year approaches perhaps I will once and for all practice what I preach to everyone else and admit to my changing status with grace. This may be the most important resolution that I have ever made. 

As my mother grew older she became so sentimental that her thoughts often brought tears to her eyes. She would think about her mother and suddenly she was crying, not in a sad way but in delightful remembrance of her relationship with her mom. She would speak of my father and her voice would begin to break. She watched Kermit the Frog singing Rainbow Connection and her eyes filled with the moist reaction that the song always gave her. 

I have tended to be stoic. While she wept with either joy or sorrow, I maintained my composure. I sometimes wondered if I would be able to brush my emotions aside if I allowed them to run free. I was the one with dry eyes at a funeral who then went home and cried for hours. While I sensed that my way of reacting to both good and bad things was not mentally healthy, I maintained my brave front by telling myself that nobody wanted to see someone fall apart. 

As I have aged I have changed, not just in appearance but it the ways that I handle my emotions. For the most part I no longer worry about either aspect of my being. I let my hair fly away and meet the public sans makeup. So too do I let my feelings express themselves as fully as they need to do. I find myself shedding tears during movies, while reading books and articles, and in front of others. I tell people that in my senior years I have become my mother and it actually feels so freeing. 

When I was decorating my Christmas tree this year my tear ducts were cleansed over and over again as I recounted the stories that each cherished bauble brought to mind. There were the Santa and Mrs Santa ornaments that my friend, Pat, bought for me at a quilt show long ago. There was the homemade ornament made from a Christmas card that featured a photo of my friend Linda’s two sons, Scott and Brian. There was the concrete orb that my son-law created in an engineering class act the University of Texas. There was the memento of our dog Red that my youngest daughter Catherine made when she was just a child. Ornaments that Marita brought to us from her vacation trips around the world made me sniffle as I thought of how much I miss sharing holidays with her. A host of Santas and silver bells from Cappy filled the barren limbs of the tree lighting up the branches with each one that I placed gently on display. 

As Christmas music played and I remembered all the Christmases past and the joys that they had brought me I felt the wonder of having an incredible life in spite of roadblocks and tragedies along the way. Each token was assigned to a person or event that was so delightful. I remembered reading the Harry Potter books and then donning decorations of Harry, Hermione and Hagrid on my tree. I smiled at the images of my friend Lisa’s two sons and those my grandchildren when they were just children. I laughed at my sparkling image of Bernie Sanders sitting with his hands encased in mittens with a mask on his face during the inauguration of Joe Biden. I recalled the fun we had at Christmas time when we visited Disney World and I purchased a set of Cinderella trinkets that have graced my tree ever since. I thought of one of the best Christmases ever when we travelled to Austria with Monica and Franz and they introduced me to the annual snowflake ornaments from Swarovski. Nothing anywhere on the tree did not evoke a momentary response that surfaced in the tear ducts of my eyes. 

It took me a long time to accept the moments when I lose my composure and bow to the demands of my feelings. I don’t linger in the sentimentality for too long but I always feel real when I do. For me the lighting of the Christmas tree is symbolic of my many years on this earth and the people and places and events that I have enjoyed. I would not trade the variety of it for anything. It provides an annual day of remembrance to me that is priceless. 

I know that times change and life moves forward. I have had to accept the inevitability of losing friends and family members over and over again. I’m trying to make the most of each day that remains for me with grace and love and even forgiveness for angry words. I like that I have finally become my mother.  

I remember nervously sitting on Santa’s lap and reciting what I wanted him to bring me for Christmas. I was one of those kids who wholeheartedly believed in him for a very long time. Then one day I knew that he was not real. Nobody ever told me the truth about where those gifts under the tree originated. Somehow I just reached a point of no longer thinking that the magic of Santa was tue. I played along with the ruse until my brothers came of age and no longer fell for the story as well. 

Once I knew that it was my mother who thoughtfully filled the space under the tree with delights for me and my siblings I felt a great connection with her generosity because I knew that her budget was small and yet she managed to find unique gifts that did not put her in debt. I often wondered where she hid all of those things so that we would not find them. Our house did not have many nooks and crannies that were secure enough to insure that our preying eyes would not stumble upon the gifts before December 25. Maybe she kept them in the trunk of her car. I never thought to ask how she pulled the whole thing off. 

Eventually I was in charge of being Santa along with my husband. I never had to inform my daughters that Santa was not real. They found the place where we had secreted the magical gifts, but never told us of their discovery. They went along with the ruse afraid that if they admitted to disbelief in the jolly man with the red suit they may not receive as many treasures on Christmas day. Eventually we simply transitioned to the idea that Santa was not going to come again because they had passed the age at which he stopped at our house. 

I have to admit that I still miss the wonder of it all. I vividly recall running to the living room with my brothers only to find that many treasures had been left while we were sleeping. I always knew which section of the display was mine because I was the only girl. I never thought to ask my brothers how they determined what belonged to each of them. I was too busy feeling elated that Santa had judged me to be good enough for his largesse. 

My youngest daughter told me that her eldest son still believed in Santa when he was in the sixth grade. His sister was worried that he might tell his friends what he hoped Santa would bring him certain gifts and be humiliated when the boys laughed at his naivety. She insisted that her mother needed to save him by telling him the truth and so came the difficult task of breaking it to the boy that the whole story of Santa was a myth. 

My heart was broken when I learned that my grandson’s reaction to hearing that there was no Santa resulted in him sobbing. He told his mother that it felt like someone had suddenly died. A kind of gloom settled over the occasion until my daughter told him that he would need to continue the tradition for the sake of this little brother. Somehow he liked the idea of being part of making someone else happy. He even thanked his mother and sister later as he realized that he would have made a fool of himself in front of his buddies had they not so wisely interceded. 

There are many arguments about Santa and whether or not we should tell our little ones that he is real. Some people never even start the tradition but most families with little ones continue the tale generation after generation. I suppose that it is an individual thing but I would not give up the feeling that that I had when I still believed in Santa for anything. The delight that those Christmas mornings brought me were immeasurable. Somehow I never felt betrayed for being the victim of a lie. Instead I came to appreciate the goodness of my mother who sacrificed so much so that me and my brothers would have a happy Christmas morning. 

It’s been a long time since Santa came to our house. We haven’t heard the squealing of delight from the voices of children for many years. Everyone has been grown for a long time. There are not elves on our shelves or visits to Santa at the mall anymore. Those photos of us and our little ones looking terrified as we sat on the old man’s lap are stowed away but somehow we all still believe in the magic and understand why we have such stories at all. It is a way of showing our love for each other on the very special day when we celebrate the birth of Jesus whose message for all time was for us to love. All of our traditions are symbolic of that one command that he insisted we must strive to achieve. 

Each December 25, when we gather together with our extended family I feel that Christmas spirit in full force. Love fills the room and laughter floats in the air. Santa still lives in our hearts. 

A dear friend showed me a feminist calendar featuring some of the most amazing women and their stories. Of course I had to have one and even purchased a couple for some that I know who appreciate such things. In glancing through the featured ladies I found myself thinking about strong women and their untold stories. That and the present day economic struggles brought me to remembrances of my mother. 

We are all feeling the pinch of higher prices for almost everything that we depend on to survive from one day to the next. For many of us paying more is an annoyance but not a life threatening moment. For others it is a matter of choosing what they will have to give up to meet the daunting demands of the present day economy. 

I am all too familiar with the concept of living on the edge. When my father was alive our family enjoyed a state of prosperity that allowed us to purchase luxuries, travel, and feel comfortable that our way of life would continue without interruption. His sudden and unexpected death threw my little family into a tailspin. Everything about our way of life changed from that point forward. 

My mother was a typical woman of the nineteen fifties. She had been a stay at home mom whose routine centered on keeping the home fires burning while my engineer father provided a better than average lifestyle for all of us. With his passing she had to become ingenious about how to meet our basic needs. 

As bad luck would have it we did not even have a home when Daddy died. We had just moved back to Houston from California and were planning to purchase a luxury home in an upscale part of town. Upon his death we did not even have a car because his wreck resulted in a total loss of the one automobile that we had at that moment. My mother inherited a responsibility that was in a shambles. Luckily she was a brilliant woman who figured out how to balance a thousand balls in the air to keep us safe and warm. 

My mother quietly and courageously pieced our broken world back together. With the help of my uncle she found a house that was a reasonable choice given her greatly reduced income. She purchased a car so basic that it had nary a bell or whistle to be found. It was an ugly thing both inside and out but it ran like a top with the monitoring of yet another uncle who was a shade tree mechanic. All in all Mama provided our little family a good life.

In retrospect I realize how difficult it was for my mother to keep food on the table, lights on in the house and clothing on our backs. She was a kind of miracle worker who relied on her knowledge of home economics to keep us mostly unaware of the challenges that she faced every single day. 

In the beginning she relied upon government assistance until she was eventually able to find a job. She stayed within a severe budget but was never really able to accumulate a savings account. Hers was a month to month struggle but she never complained. Instead she knew how to take a pot roast and turn it into at least three meals. We almost never had cookies or soda or any frivolous items in our pantry and we obeyed a firm rule of only eating what she offered us. To take something randomly as a snack was a mortal sin that would mean that she would be short of ingredients for dinner for the rest of the family. 

We stayed thin but healthy. We had few visits to a doctor because such a luxury would have stretched the budget a bit too far. We went to a free clinic on Canal Street for our immunizations. We would sit on hard chairs in a huge room for hours before it was our turn to get the shots. Mama entertained us and kept us well fed with sandwiches from home. We took it for granted that everyone went to such a place for their medical needs. 

I would be an adult before I fully realized the extent to which my mother pushed herself to provide us with the basic needs of every human. My gratitude for her efforts has only grown over the decades as I think of how calm and reassuring she was even as she must have been terrified at times that the whole thing might fall apart. 

Mama lived on the edge of life for all of the days after my father died but she always kept a smile and a spirit of gratitude for what she had. She could take a dollar and stretch it as though it was a rubber band. She never once complained about her fate but I am certain that the pressure of it wore her down. It was only after we were grown enough to care for ourselves that she fell apart and showed signs of the mental illness that must have been brewing inside of her all along. Even then she celebrated the fact that the people at her job were so supportive of her and she boasted about the insurance that paid for her care. 

I don’t know how my mother remained so optimistic, but she did. She had the instincts of a trader when it came to purchasing anything. She used her wits and her faith that God was always by her side. Not many of us would have been able to pull off the magic that she produced out of a wing and a prayer. 

There came a time when my mother-in-law took my hands and urged me to always remember that my mother was one of the greatest women that she had ever known. At the time I thought it was a sweet idea but I did not actually think of Mama as a heroine in our midst. Time and distance has allowed me to fully understand that my mother, Ellen Little, was as remarkable as any woman has ever been on this earth. Most people will never know her name but I was blessed to be the recipient of her brilliance and largesse. It was my good fortune to have such an amazing role model to guide me through life. She showed me how to overcome any challenge that comes my way but I will never be able to tackle such things with the joy and finesse that she possessed. I can only tell her story and hope that it inspires someone somewhere who is dealing with a terrible fate. Perhaps they will find the courage they need to carry on. 

I am a planner and a wanderer at one and the same time. I have always adhered to a strict schedule and a To Do list that plots out every single hour of every day. Nonetheless I always include time for serendipitous adventures. There is nothing that I enjoy more than suddenly leaving the pathway that I have outlined for myself. I love order and structure but I soon grow anxious if I am unable to follow a whim, an itch that comes over me without warning. Because I am so focused on my responsibilities I always have enough time built into my schedule to throw all caution and routine to the wind. 

One of my all time favorite movies is “Chocolat” which is the story of a gypsy like woman who comes to a small town to create a shop filled with sweet delicacies. She is a child of nature who both charms and frightens her neighbors with her seeming lack of regard for a conventional life. I found myself admiring her character and identifying with her need to seek new adventures. 

Most people would view me as being ever reliable and unlikely to set out on a wing and a prayer but I have in fact done so on many occasions. I am attracted to people who share my quirk for wanderlust. I suppose I get it from my mother who was a steadying force for me and my brothers who also had an impish streak that always led us to fun. So it was with my dear friend, Pat. 

Pat often called me and commanded me to put on my shoes and comb my hair and be ready for fun when she arrived at my home. I always knew that whatever she had in mind would be gloriously memorable. She had a way of enchanting me to follow her as though she was Peter Pan teaching me to fly and taking me away to Adventureland. So too was my mother who notoriously drove into my driveway honking her horn as though it was a command for me to get outside and go with her wherever she had decided to go. 

I loved the excitement that both of these women brought into my life. I suppose that I would have mostly kept my nose to the grindstone had it not been for them. I never knew if I was going shopping, heading for a movie or traveling a wee bit out of town. I’ll learned so much about the world around me from both women who took me to exotic places close to home that I did not know existed. 

Pat was like the big sister that I had always dreamed of having. She tutored me on the interesting aspects of the world and widened my knowledge in remarkable ways. I remember one time when we planned to go camping about three hours away from home. We packed up all the gear and I instructed her in the morays of sleeping under the stars, something she had never before done. The tables were turned and I was going to teach her. Sadly it did not come to be because I realized that I had left the poles that held up the tent back home in my garage. 

Not to be set back by an inconvenience Pat quickly found us a couple of tiny cabins for rent and the adventure carried on with a roof over our heads. We still cooked outside and used my lanterns for lighting but those solid walls shielded us from the heavy rain that came unexpectedly. We laughed about that for years afterward. 

I tend to be very careful with spending and Pat was not profligate either but she knew when it was time to splurge. She was often the one who told me not to walk away from a wonderful find just because I felt a bit reticent about the cost. I never once regretted the advice that she gave me. Somehow she was always right about when to be a bit frivolous. 

She was the only friend I have ever had whose home I could invade without invitation. In fact she tutored me in being flexible and open to guests at any time. She used to boast that all one needs to do is keep a clean bathroom and a spotless kitchen countertop just in case someone comes to the door unexpectedly. She noted that nobody cares if there is a bit of dust or some object out of place as long as the atmosphere is inviting. She insisted that I should always have some ice cream and a roll of cookie dough on hand to provide a small repast for guests who came to my door. Then she would sit me down at her kitchen table and ask me what I needed from her which was usually her sage advice. 

I suppose that we would all do well to have a balanced life in which we meet our daily expectations but also learn how to be spontaneous when the moment for doing so arises. I learned from my Mama and Pat how to do so with finesse and never miss out on an opportunity for excitement. A little imbalance now and again has proven to be a very good thing.