Turning 60

Mark and I turned 60 within a month of one another, he alone in River Forest (recuperating from knee surgery) and me in Rhode Island, with Mark and Jordan but without Regan, Hunter or Lawlor. Deep in the midst of the pandemic, we had a socially distanced cake cutting on my brother and sister-in-law’s porch.  No balloons, no “Over the Hill” décor and no excessively rich buttercream. It was in keeping with that moment in time, and it was enough.

Life’s “big moments” demand a reflective pause and our new decade was no different.  Pre-vaccine COVID caused more of these than one might expect.  Ponderings were both profound (familial love; sacred friendships; unexpected joy; bittersweet absence; passion projects) and mundane (simplified = our pants sizes).  We expect that by the time we’re 60, we know who we are and “what we want to be when we grow up”. But life can demand that we correct course in a moment, at which time all the ponderings are for naught because when the big and little moments collide, one’s trajectory is forever altered. 

In the immediate aftermath of Hunter’s death, Mark and I discussed that all future moments of joy would be tinged by sadness. This was not hyperbole or maudlin, it was an acceptance of the permanent change in our emotional landscape. And it remains true. 

But it is also true that joy exists and can be found in so many places – an intimate look, a hand-written note, a rainbow cake – with jimmies – from a college roommate, a passion project born of our deepest pain which uplifts with each positive engagement. 

For me, the challenge lies not only in holding both joy and sadness simultaneously but in choosing to see and feel and cherish the joy that presents itself in the most quotidian ways every ordinary as we moveday.  While less weighty than the musings on big days, these are the choices which knit together a profound and purposeful future, despite the sadness which accompanies us as we move inexorably forward.