I turned fifty this year, and while it doesn't seem nearly as old as it once did, this age brings your mortality into a far more sharper focus. I no longer believe that I'm going to live forever, nor do I think I'm going to die in the next ten years. My life is different from my parents was at this age. I'm still raising my children, and my parents had already entered that empty nest phase. They were able to spend a month in Europe while I was in college and my sister was in high school. I know I will never do that, although I wouldn't turn it down.
My mother turned 72 this year and she is in better health than I am, and yet the thought of losing her scares me more than the thought of my own death. My mother is still my best friend and my biggest cheerleader, and the thought of not being able to just pick up the phone and call her whenever I want makes me very sad. I would do anything to be able to move home just to spend the rest of her life being there for her, the way that she has always been there for me. But right now, that just isn't possible.
My husband and I are both in poor health, even at this relatively young age. As many of you know, my husband has a progressive neurological disease which is hereditary. I constantly worry about what will happen when I am no longer able to care for him. It is already getting to the point that I can't get him out for appointments and that sort of thing, because my disability has made lifting his wheelchair into and out of the car almost impossible. My two children who are still at home help out more than they should have to right now, and I tell them daily how much I appreciate them. However, my middle son will leave for college next fall, and my youngest one will only have two years of high school left and then he will be gone for college as well. What will we do when it is just the two of us?
Right now, I am equally afraid of dying at a relatively young age, and of living to be a very old woman. I don't want to be a burden to my boys. I want them to be able to live productive, happy lives without having to worry about what to do about Mom and Dad. I also worry about the possibility of them inheriting their father's condition. While we had no way of knowing about it, I wonder if I would have had children if I knew we would possibly be handing this to them. But, being selfish, I can't imagine my life without my beautiful boys.
I pray all the time that one day, I will wake up and my physical pain will be gone. For the time being, that prayer isn't being answered. I wonder, though, if I would be the woman that I am now had I never suffered with this chronic pain. Would I be as empathetic towards others? Would I reach out to people who suffer? Would I be sharing my life through my writings with others? While I can't fully answer these questions, I would like to think that I would. I also wonder if I would be thinking about my own mortality at fifty if I hadn't been given the life that I have now.
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