What It Feels Like to Turn 60 — and Beyond
My birthday made me wonder: How do I age with grace?
I recently turned 60. I sure don’t feel 60 and I’m told I don’t look it, but the milestone made me wonder: How do I age with grace? My mother died when she was 48 and I was 23, so I wasn’t able to watch her age when I was an adult.
Mom went gray very young. She was quite beautiful and wore her hair short, salt-and-pepper with a chic white swooping forelock. I can tell from old photos that she was more stylish when I was a kid. (You can see it in the painting below from an epic family trip to Israel, Lebanon, and Europe — she’s wearing a super cute dress I’d sure love to have now.) By the time I was a teenager, her daily uniform was corduroy jeans, crew neck sweatshirts, and maybe a white button-down shirt, loafers, or tennis shoes. She rarely wore more than mascara and lipstick. She loved to garden, and she was an incredible baker.
I recently went back to our old neighborhood to visit our next-door neighbor, Ruth, who was one of Mom’s best friends. Now a youthful 87, Ruth pulled a bag of frozen black-bottom cupcakes out of her freezer; she’s been making Mom’s recipe…
