Without doubt, despite traversing the ongoing potholes in the road of life, living into our old age is such a blessing!  I don’t really know what defines old age anyway.  Old age means many different things to many different people. It’s just a number, after all!  I have known people a quarter of a century younger than I am who have “old” views of the world and are stuck in their ways.  I also know people older than me who think young and choose to  see all the possibilities ahead of them, rather than the impossibilities.  So, old age, much like any age is what you decide to make of it, isn’t it?

We are on our way home to Texas after spending a month in the north country.  It was nice to escape for a month from the heat of Texas. But now, as we continue southward, each stop we make greets us with ever warmer wafts of air, which is good because this helps us to mentally prepare for Austin’s summer heat when we pull up into the driveway of our Texas home!

It was just wonderful to spend time with long time friends and family.  As it were, we did not get to see everyone we wanted to see.  We will have to save those friends for our next visit to the north country!  Our biggest focus was on our son and family, with special emphasis on our Granddaughters!  There is nothing quite so magical as seeing some ancestors features in the faces of ones granddaughters, or to see family mannerisms manifest themselves in a young child through the genetic bloodlines.  Somehow this makes us feel immortal,  and one cannot help but feel grateful to still be around to watch this metamorphosis evolve.

 We were treated with a warmth and cordiality that would rival and win over the renowned hospitality of any southern family. We were given our own bedroom, were invited to share our son’s home as if it were our own, and were treated to mouth watering meals!  We played cards with the girls and both Al and I became kids again in the process of doing so!  We have discovered that our spirit can’t really see the house in which it resides because it is forever looking out, so it has a tendency to become the age of whoever we are hanging around with.  Hence, we are in our 40’s when with our son and wife, and then age 12 and 9 when with our granddaughters!

I believe it was Ponce de Leon who searched for the fountain of youth wasn’t it?  Well, truth be told, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble by simply hanging out with his children and grandchildren.  That brings out our younger selves immediately since this is what our spirit yearns to be.

This old lady is not any particular age….I am who my spirit thinks I am and it generally doesn’t think “old”!  Thank you, son, for not treating us as old.  This respect for our life force is in and of itself a real gift!  Thanks for a wonderful time.  You have a wonderful wife and children and we are very proud.