A BIRTHDAY THOUGHT: WAIST NOT, WANT NOT

The Boston Globe

BEVERLY BECKHAM

The birthday has come and gone, not a significant one, though all are. Another year checked off. One more candle on a cake.

Birthdays invite reflection.

Some days I feel like Elaine Stritch with her raspy voice, belting, "I'm still here."

Some days I forget how old I am. Sitting on the floor playing with Adam and Lucy, I'm continually surprised that they are my children's children and not mine, "Mimi" instead of "Mama" this time.

Love really is lovelier the second time around. Age has its pluses.

It's not the passage of time that bothers me. How did I get from there to here? I know. I remember.

It's not the numbers, either, though when you count them out loud to a child "Guess how old Mimi is?" And you say "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7" as fast as you can you run out of fingers, then toes, and are not even close to being done.

This upsets me a little.

Being invisible it's ironic that with age comes the fulfillment of this childhood fantasy, though not as you imagined it. Not fun invisible, pranking your teacher, spying on the boy you like. But in-line invisible, in-store invisible. Invisible because you're not young anymore.

This upsets me a lot.

But mostly, day to day, I'm OK with the age thing.

"If you didn't know how old you were, and there were no mirrors, how old would you think you are?" my father used to say.

I'd think I was 12 most days.

When my mother-in-law was in her 70s, she fell down a flight of stairs at a local mall. The EMTs arrived, scooped her onto a gurney and into an ambulance, and alerted the hospital that an elderly woman was on her way in.

My mother-in-law told us later that when she heard the dispatcher say "an elderly woman," she thought, "What elderly woman? Who is he talking about?"

How old we are and how old we think we are is like two people on a seesaw so different in weight that they will never balance.

I understand all this.

What I don't understand is a silly thing.

It's my waist. It's gone and I never saw it leave.

Did it slip away like the kids did, one by one, little by little, so slowly that I didn't notice until one day I looked up or in this case down and it was missing?

Or did it just up and go, last month, last week, the dance over, the movie done? Adios. See you later.

Except this time there is no later.

How come no one ever tells you that a waist, an essential part of a human being, is not a permanent fixture like hands and feet or a big chin?

I remember my mother-in-law regaling my children with stories about growing up in Glasgow. About how she walked to school every day. About how her father went to war when she was 7 and came back when she was 9. About having to take a bath in a big metal tub in the front room every Saturday night. About liking the minister's son. And about leaving Scotland to come to America when she was 15.

And after every story, my youngest daughter would always look at her and ask, "What color was your hair then, Grandma?"

"It was blond," she said. "It was the same color as yours."

But my daughter could never imagine her grandmother with blond hair.

"Did you have a waist then, Mimi?" Is this what my grandchildren will say?

People grow up and grow old and they change, and some changes are expected. "Enjoy those 4-inch heels while you can. Young feet can tolerate abuse. Old feet cannot." So I wore high heels all the time.

But no one ever said, "Tuck in your shirt. Cinch that belt. Buy that peplum jacket."

It's no tragedy, I know. Another birthday and I'm still here. But my waist?

It's history.