As My Mom Is Getting Older, My Own Perspective on Aging Has Changed

My mother opened the door to her apartment, joyful to see me in her doorway. She was wearing an oversize black T-shirt with white cursive across the front that reads: “I can’t believe I’m the same age as old people.”

I’ve long accepted that she’s no fashionista, but I’ve only recently begun to grasp that my quirky 76-year-old mother is getting up there in years. (Can we say old? Her shirt says old.)

I’ve only recently started to grapple with her mortality

I’ve seen her scrape the edges of mortality many times: Stage II breast cancer, four joint replacements, rheumatoid arthritis, and a coronary angioplasty. These have been her personal trials, of course, but as her only child, I hope that I’ve borne some of the weight with her. I recall the diagnoses, the doctors’ appointments, the tears, the terror in her eyes from some awkward hospital bed.

But I saw each of these as mere moments in time. Bumps in the road. It took me years — decades, maybe — to internalize that these illnesses culminate in the truth that her mortal body is breaking down.

I inch toward acceptance at times, but then my mind reels. Isn’t 76 the new 56!? I recently Googled life expectancy tables for some reassuring data. I scrolled down to the birth year row of 1949. The average white American woman born in that year can reasonably expect to live to the age of 78. The research is right there, but how does a person process that information?

Our relationship is extremely close, even with its ups and downs

My mother and I have had years of deep, almost psychic, closeness. Whatever is happening in my life, whether auditioning for my middle school production of “The King and I” or discussing the realities of menopause (which I hear is coming for me soon), she understands, offers encouragement, is ever-present. Mom-on-demand.

She thinks whatever I say is hilarious, whatever I choose is smart, whatever I do is the best. Maybe she’s just great at faking it. In any case, I know I’m lucky.

That said, we have also barely made it through confusing and painful seasons of our relationship. Some people might call her…a bit dramatic or complex (I may be one of those people), and our battles have cut deep. My move to college was painful for both of us. A May-December romance she pursued rocked my world. She often felt abandoned by her only daughter. I bristled at feeling smothered.

As I’ve gotten older myself, my own perspective has changed

All of these “issues” that I once wanted to untangle in therapy, well, I just don’t care anymore. At a certain point, you shift from seeing a parent as a parent to another flawed human like yourself. As we’ve both aged, we’ve also naturally mellowed out. I don’t have the time or energy to fight. I relish my own midlife for that very reason. The things that don’t matter fade into the background. Those that are precious sharpen into focus.

I recently shared that revelation with my mom. “I’m glad you find that getting older is better,” she emailed me. “It’s just a journey, you know? As you age, for some reason, living gets lighter.”

For so much of my early life, it was the two of us in an 800-square-foot apartment against the world, and I desperately feared losing her. And yet we remain. We may live 30 miles apart, connected by text messages most days, but the closeness endures.

I still fear the loss of her one day, but it’s tempered now with the wisdom and gratitude of an adult, not the panic of a child. I believe that this strange, almost miraculous, connection we have will outlive us both. Life expectancy tables be damned.