Quote of the Day: “Three Score Years and Ten”

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away–Psalm 90:10

Yikes.  For those in Rio Linda, I’m talking about an age of seventy years. The date is imminent.  Unavoidable. Inevitable.

Curiously, I find that I’m OK with it.  Even with the notes about “labour and sorrow.”  I’ve known my share of them.  And I’ve survived and–with the help of many–overcome.

God knows what’s coming up. God knows how long I’ll last (the family actuarial tables work in my favor, when it comes to long-livedness,** but you never know).

The late Mr. Right often referred to my antecedents as the Dúnedain, the long-lived “Men of Westernesse”  in the Tolkien novels. Apt, since Tolkien lived for years in my neck of the woods in the English Midlands, and attended the same school as several of my male relatives.  (In fact, Uncle Arthur–just fifteen years younger than Tolkien–inherited a dictionary signed by the great man himself, and met him at an “Old Boys'” reunion  some years after both had left King Edward’s School, Birmingham.)

The best thing I can do at the moment, I think, is be present in this life for my family, that which I was born into, and the one I married into, and enjoy what is likely to be an overseas visit for the ages next week, in which I’ll see my sister for the first time in over a decade, in which I’ll meet my extraordinary sister-in-law, and in which I’ll meet my niece, who’s just three.

My hope is to make such an impression on the young lady that–regardless of how long I live, and how many more times I meet her in life–she regards her Auntie Louise as an influencer going forward.  That’s the lesson I’ve learned from my forebears.

The influence we hold on those dear to us has nothing to do with the quantity of time we spend with them.  (So stop, all of you, counting the minutes, and foolishly trying to manage “equity,” between “sides” of the family when it comes to weeks, days, minutes and seconds. That’s all wrong.)

The influence we hold on those dear to us has everything to do with the quality of time we spend with them.

If my darling niece holds a memory of her quirky, odd, aunt who might have been a white witch who lived amongst wild animals and nature, in a cottage in the woods somewhere in Southwest Pennsylvania, and if she’s talking about said aunt eighty or ninety years from now as a good influence on her life then–By Gum–I’ll have done my job.  I don’t imagine there’s a greater tribute to the worth of a human life than that, and I’ll die happy, whenever the moment comes.

Here’s hoping.

**Great Grandma: 99.  Auntie Betty: 102.  Uncle Arthur: 102.  Auntie Pat: 99.  And so on.  I should have almost half-as-far to go again, if I’m not to let the side down.