ISTAN(D)(WITH THE)BUL(L)
First thing this morning after dressing, as most every morning, I sipped on coffee as I opened the morning paper. I am quite methodical with most things, and the paper is no exception: I always read from front to back, in the order it came in. However, as I’ve gotten older, I have noticed my newspaper-reading method changing. Lately I find myself reading the Midlands section first, the section in most city papers that gets stuck somewhere in the middle between World News and the Sports section, the section that usually has community news, police reports, marriage, divorce and bankruptcy filings, and the weather. Now, as I slide into the murky waters of middle age, I find myself skipping all the newsworthy information and dive straight for the obituaries.
You know you’re old when you read the obits section first. But I don’t think of myself as old, at least not as old as the majority of the people in the obits. I suppose it’s relative; recently I laughed as an 80-year-old woman said she wished she were as “young” as me. It’s true I don’t think much about death or dying yet, though, as my husband recently reminded me, I am probably closer to the end of my life than the beginning. But at 50 – death, dying, the big chill, buy the farm, bite the dust – it’s not really on my radar yet, but I have to admit, I do think about it more than I used to. As I read the obits, I find myself smiling back at the pictures of the little ladies who passed at 95, 100, even, as today, 106. What a great, long life to live to 106. But as I scan the dates of birth and see a few born in 1955, 1960, 1965, I get a little squeamish. Those are young people, relatively speaking. Of course, the older I get the younger 50 sounds.
I’ve always been a daily newspaper reader, raised by newspaper readers. In my youth, I went straight for the comics while my parents settled in over the obits. As I matured, I glanced over the comics and went for the entertainment section, mostly to see what was on TV or to read my horoscope and Dear Abby. But now even Abby is gone, replaced by her daughters, and the only comics I relate to are Between Friends, the one with the middle-aged women who have a problem with dark chocolate and ex-husbands (guilty and guilty). But in the last year, people I know – people my age – are dying. Heart attacks, cancer, strokes. You don’t think about people dropping dead of a heart attack at 45, but it happens. It’s happening. To people I know. People my age – and younger. So now I find myself going straight for the obits and skipping the horoscope altogether. I’m not sure I want to know the future anymore.
When I travel back home for visits, my mother saves the weekly local paper, and the first thing I do is scan the obits. Too often, I see people I know who have passed. At our last high school reunion, conversation turned to who we had lost over the years – too many – from our class. I mention this to my 87-year-old mother. “Wait ‘til you’re my age and you go to a funeral every week,” she says. I suppose she’s right, but now, at 50, I don’t think much about it, or try not to. Maybe I will at 70 or 80, if – God-willing – I make it that far (knocking on wood as I write).
Even though I continue to scan the obits, I feel more of a sense of urgency to renew old friendships, perhaps in the back of my mind, before it’s too late. Through the miracle of Facebook, I’ve been lucky enough to find many old friends. Perhaps that’s why the largest demographic of new users on Facebook are women over 55; we are feeling more a sense of urgency (and spending too much time reading obituaries). Just last week, feeling a bit nostalgic, I brought a group of former work friends together for a mini-reunion, some I hadn’t seen in 25 years. We had martinis and bundtinis and laughed over old pictures of when we were young, and we took new pictures. We made promises to keep in touch. Perhaps we’ll meet again in 25 years and look at the new pictures we just took – of when we were 40-50 and young. It’s all relative, right?