Am I Old? A Grandchild's Perspective on Aging
How a Simple Question from a Four-Year-Old Sparked a Day of Reflection and Realization
Last month, I was blessed to be part of a wonderful writing group, led by author Diane Zinna. The following piece was inspired by Diane’s “Ekphrastic Friday” where visual art comes to life through words. Diane gave us several images to choose from. I was drawn to a photo of old and young hands, intertwined. The story below is what came out of the photo, through my fingers, and onto the page.
“Are you old?” My then four-year-old granddaughter Lailah startled me in the semi-dark. It was before dawn, and I had tiptoed downstairs to walk the dog my husband and I had just adopted. We’d had our dog for only a week before Lailah and her brother, Oliver, came to stay for a few days.
I don’t do well when caught off guard and struggled to respond. Lailah had never treated me like an old lady or insinuated my age. I don’t act like an old lady. Sometimes, I find myself at the opposite end of the continuum, crawling around on the floor and acting like a four-year-old.
I might have offered a stuttering: I’m definitely older than your mom. Whatever I said seemed to satisfy her, and we moved the moment along, but for the rest of that day, I tried to see myself through Lailah’s eyes and ascertain why she asked me if I was old.
I hadn’t slept well the night before, that was for sure. My son (Lailah’s stepdad) called just after midnight, after Mike and I had fallen asleep on the couch binge-watching old House Hunters episodes. Ruthie was in labor. I had been mentally prepared for this moment ever since my daughter-in-law’s due date had come and gone. It’s just that I hoped Levi would arrive on a random Tuesday afternoon, but you know…babies. In my sleep confusion, I told my son we would head over when the sun came out. He laughed and said, nope. By then, it would be too late.
Three hours later, Mike and I were back at our house with the two older kids, carrying their sleeping, dead-weight bodies to the guest room and settling them into bed. I stayed up to await the news.
When Lailah found me in the mudroom early that morning, I was in a zombie-like state. Could that be why she suddenly saw me as an old lady? I don’t wear makeup, so it wasn’t like she was seeing my natural face for the first time, like when I saw my grandmother without makeup for the first time and ran out of the house in tears. I thought my grandmother was dying.
The photos of baby Levi started arriving mid-morning when Lailah and I were on the couch watching Frozen. She mindlessly rubbed the skin on the back of my hand, barely taking her eyes off the TV to look at photos of her new baby brother. My son holding his son. My adopted granddaughter holding my hand. My hand. My hand! I looked down at my hand and saw the chipped nail polish, picked-over cuticles, and, horror, the bulging veins.
“Yes, Lailah,” I whispered. “I am old.”
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6f771ab0-8177-4da3-9864-8f751e6bfa3c_1548x1036.png)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd8cb0104-8522-4528-8a55-9b82d238cdee_4032x3024.jpeg)