A Silver Story.

If it’s not make-up, vitamins, or medicine, it’s camera tricks that so many are wanting to make themselves believe they are younger.  We try to look younger, feel younger, act younger….and the media spends millions feeding our distorted fantasies.  In turn, we feed that machine.  Silver hair?  Color it!  Wrinkles?  Make-up! Or better yet, go ahead and just get a facelift!  Parts of your body drooping?  Get the surgical enhancements that will make you look 21!  Dress to look younger!  Buy the latest cream and apply liberally to wherever you’re wanting to tighten right up!

In my case, the irony is that most Hispanic people look younger.  It’s true.  My Daddy is 60, but looks much younger.  My sister is eight years older than I am, the woman is beautiful.  Could pass for ten years younger than she really is.  Admittedly, I’m often told I look way younger than I am.

But as I looked in the mirror today, I spotted a silver hair.  Then a second one.  Most people I know would cringe.

I love them.
Let me tell you why.

My Momma unexpectedly, tragically, passed away in 2007.  (seems like a a day ago….yet 20 years….such a paradox)

My sweet, amazing, wonderful, loving husband took me down south to OK/TX to visit my Daddy, his wife, and my Grandma.  She’s my only living grandparent.  It was so much fun.  I am always missing them, wishing they lived closer.  I adore taking our sweet Babylove to see his PawPaw and Nonna, and his MiMi.  He’s always asking about them.  I love telling him stories about them, telling him stories about my hometown, and his Daddy’s hometown.  I love showing him the places we often went to, the cotton fields that wreaked havoc on my allergies.

Yet every time we go, I can’t help but feel those same daunting, overwhelming emotions…the bitterness, the anger, the sadness, the frustration.  I’m “supposed” to be taking him to see Her, his Nana.  And all there is to see is a tombstone with her name on it.  It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

It never was.  We weren’t created for death.

I miss her.  We won’t be able to see her grow old.  We won’t be able to see those precious wrinkles appear on her beautiful face.  All we have are pictures, memories….stories to tell.

Grief is a heavy load…one that we’re never able to put down.  Nor are we expected to!!  Love is just *that* way.  Love lasts.  So naturally, grief lasts.

For all the time that many spend wanting to turn back the clocks of their bodies…..I want to spend my time embracing this body’s clock.

I want to L I V E these days with this amazing husband, this wonderful son.  I want to embrace this time we have, to live out our story together.  I want to be able to tell our sweet son stories about his Momma and Daddy.  Our love story.  Our family.  I want to be able to tell him about when we were little.  I yearn to hear Her tell me the same things about herself.  Often, I just want to call her and ask questions about myself when I was a little girl.

We learn to find ourselves when we’re told these stories from those who love us most.  There’s so much emptiness when we’re not able to do that anymore.

As time keeps passing, I’ll live in the moments.  Of grief, of sadness, of despair and tears…..of happiness, joy, of dreams and laughter.

I want to keep seeing these wrinkles arrive on my face.  Sure, I only have a few now.  I only have a couple of silver hairs.  But I want so much more time with these humans!

They are precious.  I am so in love with them.  I love Us.  I want to keep aging with them.  Because it’s more than many people are given.

With each wrinkle, every silver hair….we have more time to live our story together.

Don’t buy into the lies of turning back the clock. Rather, just turn with it.  The age old cliché is true; time is precious.