Roy’s Sunday Letter for April 27, 2025
NAVIGATING THE PATH TO AGING WELL #1
I am surprised to now find myself an elder of 80, and in May 81. All of this too fast and too soon. I need more time to prepare, to be ready for the physical, emotional, economic, and spiritual changes, challenges. As I lift my eyes and heart upward, I also want opportunities.
“You Gotta Believe” is a Netflix movie about a Fort Worth Little League baseball team going to the playoff international finals. I watched as the 2nd baseman I was and still am. Whether young or old as a Sunday Letter reader, who were you…as band member, a basketball guard, a cheerleader, or the quiet kid on the back row? We all still carry our earlier “us” into our now living it out in the fullness of age. In truth, there are many of “us” looking out into the bright light of 2025.
There are too many friends with sudden or declining health, dementia or Alzheimer, or spouse or other family member’s death. In the crowded calendars and business of daily life, perhaps it is life’s interruptions that define this stage of elderhood.
As I talk and listen to senior peers, it is natural to revisit past events, vocation, and places. What is not talked about enough is What’s Next? In 2014, we were in Santa Fe, worn out from our early mornings and late nights and left behind careers. With no next in mind, I began writing fiction stories and retellings of my youth. No real plan, more of a stumble into 2nd career as writer. I soon published a story collection titled “Let Me Tell You A Story,” and began the weekly Sunday Letter, with Beth as senior editor.
I did not come to elderhood without the presence, support, and kindness of others. The elementary school librarian who improved my reading and introduced me to the power of the printed page. Hollie Atkinson encouraged my student faith as a ping pong playing Director at the Baptist Student Union. O. D. Bound’s golf scholarship offered and sponsored my college education. Jim Greene took a chance on my first job in Campus Ministry in North Carolina. Beth and Tricia taught me about grief, loss, and healing by founding The Hope and Healing Place in Amarillo. Annmarie McLaughlin, Santa Fe Community Foundation, recognized the value of my proposal to begin and host The Executive Learning Circle. I have been inspired by the lives of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Senator John Lewis, Oprah, Michelle and Barack Obama and so many more. Who has inspired you, provided an opportunity so important to you in your life thus far?
Beth and I are humbled and blessed to live these senior years together with good physical, mental, and emotional health. There is no me without the presence, guidance, and spiritual wisdom of Mary Elizabeth Kean. We trust our years since 1977 of “5 houses and 5 precious dogs.” Together we continue to learn, appreciate, and support both our individual and couple interests. No, not with physical strength, but with the faith and flexibility of leaning into each other in the tough days, and also the days of smiles and satisfaction.
Roy, writing more pages on aging as I live each day
Oh Lord, this certainly hits home this morning. I had to go next door to my sweet neighbor yesterday because I could not remove a jar lid even though I tried every trick in the book. What hits home to me is aging alone. I knew when I married Jim that he was thirteen years older than I, but physically he was in such great condition everyone expected him to outlive me; well he didn’t, by several years. You and Beth are so blessed to have each other to lean on and to celebrate life with. I have had many mentors in my life, too many to mention. But I know you have to rely on yourself so often at the end of life. Do not sit in your space alone. Get out, if possible, and volunteer somewhere, there are so many opportunities. You be someone’s mentor, share the wisdom you possess. I am so grateful to Roy for sharing his life stories.
Dear friend, you have fully felt and faced so many of life’s challenges.
#1 , 2, and 3 Jim’s far to soon death, sudden loss.
And yet, within you is your spirit, his spirit, your spirit together.
Beth and I cannot replace, make right
What we can and will do is walk beside you, always.
We continue together……
Beautifully written! Keep aging with dignity and grace, and encouraging us along your journey.
doing and being our best
every morning grateful
Well said Roy! My intention is to continue to try to give back to others what so many have given to me. Is it wisdom, experience or just perspective. Continue to learn how to live and benefit others, people and institutions.
My mother once said to me that as she got older the clock seemed to speed up. NOW I get it!
I found this saying in a NY Times article on a Baltimore Museum.
When asked about the why of his art: “Enough energy, food, and love sufficient for everyone.”
I will find a fit for these words on a future Sunday.
Today I am doing a search in online writer’s hubs for creative ways to show or represent the written word beyond the screen, page, audio, phone.
Another artist sole to the history and value of art in times of revolution…..seems timely to me.
My search will take me into connections with broader ways of communicating, a shifting of the arts into new shapes, sounds, images.
Actually, into the unknown, or least beyond my limited known.
Neither you nor I are through……coffee on me anytime you in the neighborhood. RCB
Wonderful assessment. My cardiologist recently said. “Meg, you are only 80. I expect you to live 10 to 15 more years. ONLY 80, took that as a mandate to get busy on my back burner projects. ( before that it was a belittling “after all you are 80. Causes a “what’s the point attitude.”)
Keeping the brain active is as important as keeing the body active!
Friend forever Meg….
See my Comment back to Roger of Santa Fe on the arts and not being through.
Move those back burners forward….bringing each alive through vision and perhaps AI.
Send any scrap and I will do the same…..Creatives we be!!!
RCB
Good sentiments Roy as we each continue our own journeys.
Good to read your Comments.
Thinking of you and all the complications of your days.
You are handling all as best possible, and not being over-whelmed.
good thoughts your way. RCB
I was and still am the basketball player in high school in the late 70s and early 80s. Looking forward in spite of pain I now feel in my knees, I am grateful to move and be.
I am reminded of scripture, “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you….” Isaiah 46:4.
Thank you Roy for sharing your wisdom!
Knees for those on the court
Back pain for golfers.
We both carry our memories with pride.
I am sending your the pizza 1, 2, 3, by email……Best of all your way. RCB
Let me offer gratitude as a 63 year old. Roy, so much you do in conversation and writing encourages me to push back any notion of an age limit on meaningful contribution. Thank you.
None of the good stuff happens without my other person, senior editor.
It no longer matters who reads, or how many.
I am a bit like the old mule heading to the barn.
My fiction writing is less …. the SL takes energy.
But, here we are doing and being who we are.
Good for us…..RCB
Live each day with purpose, vision, daring and resiliency. That quality that shines forth in the darkest times and those of light. The Leadership Circle was/is one of the sacred places where safety and confidentiality prevail. A rich haven for visionaries who are succeeding or stumbling. Love to you Roy.
Overflow of peaceful satisfaction about parts of my limited life that continues on in the lives and actions of others.
Wow. Humbling….RCB
Wonderful thoughts and insight Roy.. thank you very much for the great letter.
dignity and purpose, humility and grace,
keep on writing! md
And I receive something back from readers and Comments as well.
Our society has become more complicated, meaner.
Staying “tough soft and flexible” not easy but best path.
Note to Betty……be well, be who you are…..RCB