When we were visiting my folks this summer, my mom wanted Russ to take pictures of her and dad. She said, “Make us look younger.”
Mom is turning 81 at the end of this month and I think she already looks young! But I understood something about what she meant when Russ did a slide show on my computer of pictures he’d taken the day of our outing to the little town of Hastings in southeastern North Dakota where Mom and Dad and all my siblings were born and raised.
Our big family project this last year was to plan the family headstone and the foot stones for “the kids” upon our deaths. It was a great project to do while everyone was here and could participate and have their say. We decided that even though we haven’t lived in Hastings in forever, it’s where we all wanted to be, together in the end as a family.
Back to the slide show, Mom was looking at the photos of our field trip and we were loving them all. Then she saw one of herself at the cemetery and she said, “Oh, I should have stood straighter! I look so old!”
I didn’t see it that way but her words stuck in my head. After I got back to Sonoma and into my regular walks, I thought about Mom and what she’d said about age and posture. I was on a favorite trail and immediately lifted my rib cage, rolled my shoulders back and hiked the rest of the way standing about an inch taller than when I started.
I hadn’t been thinking about how good posture could be an age defying tip but I’m ready to listen to my mother on this one!
No Comments