- Feb 5, 2002
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“Seventy is the sum of our years, or eighty, if we are strong, and most of them are sorrow and toil; they pass quickly and we drift away” (Psalm 90)
There’s a story that makes the rounds in my family and always draws a laugh — at my expense. Some years ago I was shopping at T.J. Maxx, pushing a wire cart around the store, and as I rounded a corner in the crowded clothing department, I spotted my mother. “Mom!” I exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
Then as other shoppers looked incredulously at me, I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment. My mother wasn't shopping in the Clearance Department at T.J. Maxx — she was still enjoying her morning coffee at the kitchen table. Instead there, at the end of the aisle, was a full-length mirror. I was humbled to realize that it wasn't my mother I’d seen, but my own reflection! I'm not sure what was worse: making a fool of myself in front of the other shoppers, or realizing that I seemed older than I had thought — so old, in fact, that even I mistook myself for the older generation.
Continued below.
The Gift and the Challenge of Aging Gracefully
There’s a story that makes the rounds in my family and always draws a laugh — at my expense. Some years ago I was shopping at T.J. Maxx, pushing a wire cart around the store, and as I rounded a corner in the crowded clothing department, I spotted my mother. “Mom!” I exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
Then as other shoppers looked incredulously at me, I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment. My mother wasn't shopping in the Clearance Department at T.J. Maxx — she was still enjoying her morning coffee at the kitchen table. Instead there, at the end of the aisle, was a full-length mirror. I was humbled to realize that it wasn't my mother I’d seen, but my own reflection! I'm not sure what was worse: making a fool of myself in front of the other shoppers, or realizing that I seemed older than I had thought — so old, in fact, that even I mistook myself for the older generation.
Continued below.
The Gift and the Challenge of Aging Gracefully
