Old Age Aint for Sissies

Bette Davis warned us …

When I was a young mother, consumed by diaper changes, projectile vomiting, and infants who had their days and nights turned around, I imagined a future family … one where the grown children gathered around my table at holidays and birthdays, the grandchildren doted on me, and my phone rang with invitations to their events, or maybe an occasional lunch or dinner out.

I’m sixty-six years old and we recently moved back to the metro area from the North Shore of Lake SuBetteperior so that my husband and I would have easier access to health care and family.

It’s not what I expected.

Granted we are a remarriage and when we married eighteen years ago, our children were all grown, but still a girl can dream.

The reality is that my children and my husband’s children have in-laws and ex-laws, demanding careers, hobbies, social lives and their own children (with their own demands of homework and sports and social lives). Some of our children live 25 miles away, some 300 miles, and one couple an ocean away. But we thought the metro area would be more accessible when they came to visit. So here we are.

We are closer to healthcare and when my husband had three doctor appointments last week, we didn’t have to rent a hotel room or eat in restaurants for three days. So there’s that.

You’re right, Bette, getting old isn’t for sissies — or whiners.

When the protagonist of my novel, THE VIOLET HOUR BOOK CLUB retires, she dreams of living on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Violet and her husband, Stephen, make plans, buy a house, and envision a future. And then Stephen dies. To make matters worse, her daughter isn’t speaking to her, and her son and his wife are buried in the demands of their careers.

Violet does the only thing she can — she creates a different life than the one she had planned. Her re-visioning offers her opportunities she never would’ve encountered — new friends in a new setting with new adventures to be had. THE VIOLET HOUR BOOK CLUB is the story of an older woman forced to begin again who learns to embrace a life she never knew she wanted.

Getting old isn’t for sissies — it’s for the audacious souls lucky enough to get there.