A Senior Moment
with Winky Sweet

I don’t feel like a senior. I was caught flat at a Friendship Circle one time when I illustrated a point by saying, “remember ….” One person remembered, from childhood. The rest knew of it but with no memories. So maybe I am a senior, but I don’t feel like one. I don’t feel very old or very smart.

What have I found most important in my life? Family. First my natal family. We were a large family on a farm outside town, large enough to do the ubiquitous chores in pairs, and large enough to be each other’s best friends, to fight and make up, to experience learning and teaching and helping. We went our ways to find work and build our own families. Now grown, we have reconnected; we appreciate one another and are very much there for each other.

Then came my own husband and children who were my whole world at that stage. Now the children are grown and again we have reconnected as adults and are there for each other. And of course grandchildren are the light and joy of my life now.

Reconnection has come from celebration or adversity or illness. My folks are aging to where they cannot care for themselves, so they need company and my brother needs help and relief. Over the years, one or another of us has been between jobs or living spaces. My daughter lived through her cancer and my husband died from his, and a sister has just lost her husband. Lifestyles and beliefs that have changed over time might seem to separate us, but do not. Family is there, family goes on.

The third family is church- Baptist as a child, Methodist through my early and mid-adult years, then nothing until I found UU. But always being known and accepted, learning and searching together, being a family, being there. Thank you for accepting me in this UUFEC family.