ElderChicks

Broaden your outlook as you grow older. Go climb a tree.  Experience a new viewpoint.  When I turned age 60, we lived in Africa.  I climbed high up a marula tree and had a photo taken.  I then sent it to my children with the promise that every 10 years, I would again climb a tree.  When I became 70, I climbed a tree back home in Bluffton, Ohio. It was not quite as high as the African tree, but again, I had my photo taken for the family.  At age 80, we were visiting a friend on a lake in Michigan. I climbed a tree outside their cabin. Well, anyway, I stepped about a foot and a half off the ground into a fork in one of their trees, hung on with each arm around one of the trunks, smiled, and my husband took a photo.  Now at age 90, I went out to a tree near my Maple Crest retirement apartment. It was about 3 feet high, given to me by the Medical College of Ohio in thanks for the donation of my deceased husband’s body.  With the help of the arms on my walker, I stood up and, you guessed it.  I lifted one foot and put it ON the tree, fulfilling my promise to “climb” a tree every 10 years. My daughter, Greta, took the picture.  When I turn 100 years of age? Maybe I will be planted UNDER a tree.Saying “yes” instead of “no” to activities that open up each day of retirement makes all the difference.  If you can’t or shouldn’t drive your car, say “yes”  if someone offers you a lift.  Or even ask around if anyone is able to give you a lift.  I was asked to judge a university music contest the other day and I said “yes.”  Somebody offered me a ride to a high school baseball game this week and I said “yes.” A loving son is giving his mother a surprise 80th birthday party. Would I attend? As her OLDER friend, I said “yes.” Of course if this old body needs a rest or a nap instead of another activity, I also can say “yes” to myself !

All around me are evidences of the rich life I have led. A fifteen foot python skin, tanned and mounted on maroon felt, stretches across the wall. I remember the man who brought it to my kitchen door in a remote section of Botswana, having had permission to shoot it when it was eating his chickens. Blind African children from the Pudulogong (open your eyes) school in

Mochudi, Botswana, are walking to an airplane where they will sing a dedication to this airlift mission vehicle. I taught music at their school. Amish children with their parents walk to a wedding in a print taken from a tiny movie photo. My mother taught their elementary school classes.  Hugh Masekela, South African musician, plays his horn and writes on his photo “May the beat of Africa stay glued to your toes forever.”

I want to keep saying “yes” to new experiences. [Leave your comment here.]

By Christine Purves