It’s been fourteen years since I learned that I have a half-sister.  She is twenty-one years older than I am and was eighty-two when she found me. There is no way to make up for the years we lost, but we are in touch regularly now.

When I checked in with Florence last week, she wasn’t her usual upbeat self.  Now ninety-six, she has just given up her car.  “I failed the vision test,” she explained.  She also told me that her legs aren’t working very well, so walking is a problem.   But she does walk to the corner to pick up groceries. She uses a “senior ride” service so that she can still go to the movies with friends, all of whom are younger than she is and used to depend on her for rides themselves. 

But when Florence admitted that she is “finally feeling old”, I was surprised.  At seventy-five, I’m not feeling like a spring chicken myself.  But if I can be like my half-sister, I have twenty-one more years to be young.

I’ll go with that.