I'm 82 and living alone out in the country on 22 acres in Coastal California. The property is beautiful and calming. My son comes out to help me several times a week.
At 79 I had chemo and radiation for breast cancer. My oncologist doesn't expect it to come back. Recently I had a back problem and excruciating pain, but that too passed.
I love archeology and looking at old reconstructions of bodies that were mummified or guessed at from a piece of bone. I loved looking at the bog bodies in Pageant Magazine when I was 12 years old.
My youngest daughter grew up being hauled around to cemeteries. I found myself standing next to the grave of George Washington's sister out of nowhere in one.
It reminds me that I soon will be dead. I'll be cremated. It worries me, scares me, that I won't be here any longer. I think about it a lot. But I still enjoy every day. My husband of 58 years died 4 years ago and now I have a relationship with my boyfriend from the 8th grade. Life goes on!