Rarely do I reflect on the virtues and gifts of getting older. More often, as I find myself (beyond) midway on the journey of my life, I wake, not to a dark wood, but to a forest of friends on a group text, all mildly lamenting our perimenopausal symptoms, comparing brands of supplements, and extolling the merits of weighted vests. This life stage isn’t glorious, and though my generation is still far from the major health concerns of the aged, we too often focus on our perceived losses rather than the gains of added years.

Thus, it surprised me recently, as I attended Mass, how unexpectedly grateful I was to be middle-aged. Allow me to explain: When I became a mother, I expected to enjoy watching my own children grow up–and of course knew I wouldn’t be immune to the effects of time myself. The prayer at our wedding (like that of many of yours) was that we “live to see [our] children’s children.” God willing. But what struck me that day as fellow parishioners filed into pews was just how much I enjoy seeing my friends’ children, too. It was like a sudden revelation of a gift that no one had told me about: the odd upsurging of maternal pride and love when looking upon the faces of the young people I had known since their babyhood. There was the young man–the now broad-shouldered teen— that had once wormed his way into my heart as a stuttering, rambunctious three-year-old. On another pew was the once shy toddler, now a graceful, outgoing young lady who looks just like her mother, my friend. I will forever love that gangly middle-schooler whose once toothless, dimpled six-year-old grin captured my affections. 

But before I fully devolve into a mawkish, cheek-pinching church lady, I have to ask myself why God gave me this unexpected gift of gratitude and affection. I was surprised–perhaps ashamed–to realize how the gift of these various people in my life had gone, to some extent, unappreciated. It suddenly and deeply enriched the gift of friendship for me–that my friends have not only given me their love, but they have shared their children with me as well. Those years of interrupted conversations on park dates (once a source of frustration) had, in fact, formed in me an abiding love for a whole community of young people.

Also, I began to reflect on the gift of time. I typically feel like the speaker of Shakespeare’s sonnets, “all in a war with time for love of you.” Or, perhaps, more accurately, I’m in a war with time for love of (pridefully) my own strength, agility, and (mostly) lack of hoary hair.  But I was at once grateful for my years, for I knew my love had only grown with time and memory. The lines Wordsworth composed above Tintern Abbey resonated with me in a new way: That time is past, / And all its aching joys are now no more, / And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this / Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts / Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, / Abundant recompense.

Indeed, I have received abundantly, and I thank God for the gift of not only those children who bear my family name but all those He has given me.