On Being Eighty-Five

I want to share with you something I wrote last December:

0n Being Eighty-five

Eighty-five. 

I'm turning eighty-five next month.

I'm so glad. I have lived long enough to say these words and celebrate their meaning.

I'm alive. I'm healthy.

I no longer have to be concerned with what anyone thinks of me. I'm turning eighty-five and I've earned the right to be ME.

I'm amazed at the way my journey here on earth continues to unfold.

I grew up during some tumultuous political times, but had always had “love and care” from my parents. They sheltered me from the cold and cruel “outside world”, and made my life wonderful. In spite of the terror of war, the awful killings around us, and the cruelties of the enemies, of living in constant fear . . .

I learned to entertain myself with rented block-printed story books – the adventures of the good-against-evil, taught me my life-long lessons.

I learned to listen to a few precious 78- long playing records on hand-cranked gramophone – the emotion filled Chinese Classic opera sung in poetry . . . they gave me my life-long love of music. 

My long journey from my birth in Manchuria (the very northern part of China), to Shanghai (the Pearl of the Orient), to Hong Kong (the safe-haven for refugees from China – Hong Kong was part of Great Britain at that time), and then to the democratic United States of America . . .

From a girl in old China to a wife and mother in the U.S., I remained adventurous, and always optimistic.

I marvel at the forces of nature, offering us life in abundance. 

Yes, they are there if you can see them.

You learn, you grow, you work hard and you find yourself; and you live the life being you.

I'm glad that I'll be 85.

I hope that you feel about Life as I do.