To celebrate the publication of her memoir Good Grief, written with daughter Catherine Mayer, Anne Mayer Bird reflects on the events of recent years – including the experience of widowhood – and looks ahead to 2022.
When I published my first book at the age of 87, the memoir Good Grief, written with my daughter Catherine, people expressed amazement, but not about how clever I was or how well I wrote. “You look so young, what is your secret?” they asked.
A year later, after one of the toughest periods of my life, I probably look closer to my age. However, my response hasn’t been to try to change my appearance. No hair dye or botox for me. I don’t criticise anyone who chooses these routes. It’s just that for women, far too much store is placed on staying young. As nature dictates that we all grow old, my goal is to try to remain vibrant instead.
Do I have secrets to impart in that respect? I’ve been pondering the question. Some of my ability to keep going with verve and enthusiasm is clearly the luck of the draw—and despite the hard times I mentioned, I consider myself lucky. Nature has been kind to me and, for many years, so was life. For most of my nearly nine decades, I’ve been healthy, engaged in activities and work I enjoy, financially secure, and I also spent more than 40 years in a blissfully romantic relationship with my second husband and love of my life, John.
But frankly the last few years have been quite testing. John became very ill. My strength and mobility meant I could cope with caring for him, managing his wheelchair, rubbish disposal, carrying out the supermarket load and other heavy duty chores. I wish there was still call on me to do these things. John died at the end of 2019. Just 41 days later, Catherine’s husband, my son-in-law, whom I loved very much, died too, probably one of the earliest UK Covid cases. I had never lived on my own and I was suddenly very alone indeed, with the first lockdown forcing everyone into isolation. Even so, my health held.
The second year of widowhood has been more challenging still in some ways. 2021 brought a hip replacement after several weeks of sudden and incredible pain. This was my first ever operation. I was quite poorly for a few weeks afterwards. Only later did Catherine tell me that she thought I was going to die. I was not only touched to tears but realised that she and my other two daughters had never seen me anything other than totally fit and well. Unlike John, I had never experienced pain before or loss of mobility or being unable to entirely care for myself. I never doubted I would survive, but the experience made me realise I am older and more vulnerable than I thought I was.
Six months later, I still have a slight stiffness to my walk but that’s all. And I have managed, so far, to avoid the dreaded Covid. My age meant I was high up in the queue for vaccines and the booster.
Moreover, despite the loss and the pandemic and my significant age—I’m now 88—I’m feeling optimistic. My brain is still fizzing and I am full of energy and purpose and things I still intend to do with what remains of my life. I love my friends and family and they seem to love me. I try to look outwards and not inwards and I do not look back with any sort of regret on what has been a very special life.
And I’m working on a new book, a novel.
So maybe I do have secrets to staying not young but youthful, and I’ll share them with you, but I do want to make clear that not for one moment do I think I am good at all of them or all of time.
Be real. Don’t avoid your age or the way you look but be someone people want to know and spend time with.
Retain your sense of humour.
As you age, become more aware of the fact that what you present to the world is not your looks but your soul or spirit. The things you believe and wish to share become all important. You truly reap as you sow and thus want to be thought of as the woman who is funny or kind or interesting rather than (or more importantly than) smart and stylish and splendidly dressed.
Remain independent. Speaking as someone who leans all too heavily on her daughters, I have been slow to master the things widowhood left me to learn as well as the Covid-induced dependence on all things online. I am fighting battles on many fronts: learning to live with my smartphone and computer and online appointments. Just as my mother, mid 20th century, would never have expected to leap out of her car and fill it with petrol, we septuagenarians and octogenarians have to live in today’s and not yesterday’s world.
As the milestones pass, the birthdays and anniversaries and New Years, keep thinking what there is still do to, what lies ahead. Be grateful for and celebrate what has passed, but continue to anticipate and create what is to come.
As Eartha Kitt famously said when asked how she was in extreme old age, I’m still here!
Thus endeth the sermon.
– Anne Mayer Bird
Good Grief, by Catherine Mayer and Anne Mayer Bird, is out now in paperback, e-book and audio.
