Becoming a Crone

 

 

         I once asked my Grandmother Margaret Cole Dugat what it felt like to be old. She told me that she still felt like the 15-year-old she had been those many long years ago; the face in the mirror did not reflect the image she had of herself, the feelings that she still experienced. She lived to be 96 years old.  And as she was dying, she almost looked like that 15-year-old, tiny and curled up in the hospice bed, her hair in a ponytail. Her last words to me and one of my sisters who was also standing nearby were, "I love you, too."

        Since Tom's death 6.5 years ago (yes, I'm counting), I am more and more aware of my own aging, as the last photos of him will always be of his 61-year-old self, his beard graying, but his hair barely gray at all and having grown back after the chemo and all hope were abandoned. Among his last words to me were "you are so beautiful," as he reached up to stroke my face, just hours before he took his last halting breaths.

        I think of those words as I look in the mirror at the white hair I am refusing to color, at the face with the developing age spots and wrinkles, the sagging eye lids, the thinning skin. When Tom looked at me so lovingly those last few hours of his life, he saw much of that as my hair was already gray and I had gained weight and developed health issues during those years of sorrow and care. What did he see? Did he see, also, the fifteen-year-old girl whom he fell in love with? Was there in my face an image like a lenticular print that changes as one moves the image: Anita at 15, Anita at 25, Anita at 30, 40, 45...and back to Anita at 62?

        That's just another thing I have lost in losing Tom, a lover who remembers the younger me, not just the me now, moving into old age--all that history we shared, aging together, reflected in our changing bodies.

        Today it's easier than ever to fight the outward appearances of aging. The rich can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on cosmetic procedures that remove the lines from their faces, the age spots, the drooping eyelids, the "turkey" neck, that plump up the thinning lips and sagging breasts. Much less expensive procedures are available for the less well-to-do. Women in their 20s begin Botox procedures these days. According to an article in The Atlantic, "the number of Americans ages 19 and under who got injections of Botox or similar products rose 75 percent from 2019 to 2022--and then rose again in 2023."

        Despite the drawbacks of Botox (expense, temporary results--3-6 months--, potential side effects), "a person who starts baby Botox at 25 and keeps it up could still look that age a decade later. In another 10 years, they may look noticeably young for their age. Even if they stop at that point, they age on a 20-year delay." ["The Logical Extreme of Anti-aging," by Yasmin Tayag, in The Atlantic, September 25, 2024] 

    The process sounds exhausting to me. And, anyway, I'm way past 25 years old. What would I gain at my age looking slightly younger? I have been schooled too well by death and grief. No, I'm limping into old age as a crone.

        I do recognize the drawbacks of just letting natural aging take its course. The white hair is a giveaway probably sooner than the age spots on my face. But, again, trying to keep up with hair color is more than I'm willing to do--though I did a bit of that when I was younger, coloring my hair with henna. I do see, more often than not, in the faces of younger people the sizing up, the dismissal. And when men my age marry for the first, or second, or third time, they generally choose younger women. We don't cherish age in our culture, especially aging women.

        I carry my history with me, in my memories, in my body. With Tom gone, the man who traveled this distance with me from the age of 15 to 61, that will have to be enough.