When I was a child, I loved old people.

This is a line from a perfect essay by poet Donald Hall in the New Yorker, 1/23/12, p. 42. The essay is entitled "Out the Window" and it's about life, love, family, aging, and death.

When I was a child, I loved old people, too. I acquainted them with my Grandmother and Grandad Dice whom I loved for their farm, their stories, their hardwork and consistent care. When I moved to Tucson, my first two jobs were working with Seniors and several of them took me in as one of their own grandchildren for holidays and Sunday dinners. As I married and had my own family, those relationships faded away and my own parents became the older people in my life.

Taking care of my mom in her last two years took some of the idyllic bloom off my memories of aging and now, taking care of my dad, the petals are definitely falling off the stem. I don't care for him in a daily way, except for phone calls, and that was true with my mom as well. I don't know how 24/7 caregivers do it. I couldn't and stay sane. So I am grateful that their frugal living and my dad's wise investments make a retirement community possible. Even so, the neediness of her and his aging stings my days like a sharp thorn.

And now that I am heading toward 63 myself, I realize that I am becoming one of those "old people", too. My husband says, "you're a young 62-63 year old." Hmmm. What does that mean? I can touch my toes easily; I can swim laps; I can walk the Rillito River Park.... What benchmarks are meaningful that signify when a person is "old"?

From my reading, Donald Hall suggests that when younger people condescend to you and talk to you as if you were a child (again), you know you are old. Also, he suggests that, with the passage of time, remembering how a farm or landscape used to look and how it has changed, is another indicator of oldness.

I have more questions than answers about this stage of life but I know one thing: I hope I am loved (still) when I am old.

What aging questions and answers do you have tucked away in your psyche? And how is that working for you now?