I opened my mother’s china cabinet as I made arrangements for her 90th birthday party. “Oh, no,” she said.” “The china is for something special!”
Was she holding out for 100? Well, she almost made it.
Fortunately, I have eight years to go to 90, but I learned from my mother, Agnes Doan, that it isn’t all bad.
She started boasting about her age when she reached 90, proud to still be around.
Her book group always met at her house so that she wouldn’t have to travel.
The church assigned a friend for her, knowing most of hers were gone.
Employees at the supermarket were very helpful. But they panicked when a can of vegetables fell from a shelf on her head. She got special attention again when she fell harmlessly off a stool at a slot machine and hit her head on the casino floor. (They were afraid of getting sued.)
Best of all, she was considered an expert when it came to the history of Placerville, Calif. She had lived there since 1910 except for about 50 yers in the SanFrancisco Bay Area.
Her family had settled in Placerville, 9 miles from the gold discovery site, at the height of the Gold Rush in 1851. The family mined for gold and opened a hardware store and a bank. That should have made them rich, but the next generation lost both businesses by making bad loans.
She enjoyed being asked to talk about her experiences. She also complained bitterly when a news article omitted my grandfather’s part ownership in a clothing store on a its 100th anniversary.
What was her secret to long life? Genes, I suspect. (I hope.) She was quite religious and had a positive attitude about life.
Well before she died in 2008 at age 98, I asked her if she worried about death. “I never think about it,” she said. Neither do I.
Postscript: Now we serve my mother’s china to our guests. We tell them we use it only for something special: them.
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