June 22nd is my mother-in-law’s birthday. She died in December of her 90th year. She was a frail, little woman, probably only 5 ft. tall. One day I was helping her from her front porch onto the five steps that led down to the sidewalk when she stopped midway, grabbed the railing tightly, looked at me and, with a huge sigh, said, ”I didn’t think that it would be like this.” Without much thought, I acknowledged her comment with, “I know Mom, but we have to keep going.” Then I gently led her the rest of the way to the car.

Throughout the years since her death, I would retrieve her comment and wonder what she was experiencing when she made it. I’m beginning to understand better as I deal with disabilities brought on by the aging process. I wish that I had helped her express what she was going through spiritually, physically and emotionally. It would have helped her at the time and prepared me to look more realistically at my future.

Her comment reveals that she had expectations for her later years. I, on the other hand, can only remember one that I had for mine – pleasure reading, a lot of it. I never seemed to have time for that, what with marriage, raising a family, returning to college and working outside of the home.

Of course I pictured myself in a garden, reading in the cool of the morning with a steaming cup of coffee at my side or in the warmth of a late summer day, sipping from a frosty glass of an iced soft drink. The reality of my white hair years has destroyed that dream and I now can say, “I didn’t think that it would be like this.”

I do get to do a lot of reading for pleasure now, but it took about four years to fit it into my life; and it in no way looks like I envisioned it. I first had to adjust to my life slowing down to almost a crawl, which finally ended up with the use a walker. Then I snatched a few minutes each day to read as I sat in the bathroom. When I received a Kindle for Christmas three years ago, I placed it at my bedside and read before falling asleep. This year I was given an iPad and last month I began using it for an audio reading for one of my books on my Kindle. It is helpful when I am preparing a meal or cleaning up afterward or when I am ironing. Last week I finished reading/hearing three books; but not in the way I pictured when I was younger. But I am a happy camper.

I tell you about this struggle in my life because aging brings on difficulties and disappointments that most of us will face and because, even though I did not do right by my mother-in-law by not delving into her distress, I did speak a truth when I said that ‘we have to keep going’. It is called persevering.