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Friday is my birthday. Usually, Ken and I would go out for supper, but not this year with COVID-19. Our family gathering at a restaurant with cake at home afterward won’t happen either. Even without the normal celebrations, I consider myself lucky to have another birthday. Every morning, I thank God and utter my mantra, “Today we’re okay.” I’m still not convinced I’m an octogenarian,

I’ve adjusted to being the oldest person in the room when meeting with a group of scribblers. That’s one of the great things about writing–as long as my mind and my fingers work, I can continue.

I’m encouraged by three prominent women who are in their eighties and active in their professions: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87; English actress Judi Dench, 85; and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, 80. I think some of the so-called jokes about aging perpetuate the stereotype of inept, older people.

Ken recently remarked about an old woman talking to him in Galena. Our adult grandson, Jacob, asked, “What’s old to you, Grandpa?”

My definition has changed over the years. As a teenager, my parents pushing forty seemed old. When I received my first AARP discount at fifty, seventy was over the hill. Now, I look at a person’s actions. Some people seem to be practicing to be elderly. They’re the ones whose favorite saying is, “At our age, we shouldn’t be doing that.”

I’m reminded of “Satchell” Paige, a major league baseball pitcher, noted for his longevity in the game during the 1940s. He said, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” In my mind, I’m 45 and that doesn’t change. I don’t know why I picked that age–it makes me younger than our children.

To echo “Satchell” Paige, how old do you think you are?”

This is a story about two women named Frances.

My mother’s oldest sister, Aunt Frannie, and husband, Uncle Hookie, loved me like a grandchild in place of Mom’s parents who had died. The short woman with graying, brown hair and the tall, bald-headed man seemed old to me.

Aunt Frannie, who struggled with arthritis, always wore a housedress protected by an apron. She sewed her own clothes, made garments for her two daughters and, occasionally, stitched up something for me. She also sewed for outsiders to augment the income from their small farm. She had a saying for every situation. My favorite was, “If you burn your ass, you sit on the blister.”

Tomorrow, August 27, was her birthday. I wish I’d realized sooner that she turned twenty-one in 1920, the year the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave women the right to vote. I would have liked to ask her about it.

My aunt’s namesake, our middle child, Lisa Frances, turned twenty-one in the eighties and became one of the first female Illinois State Troopers. When Lisa retired eight years ago, she was a master sergeant. She’s single, owns her home and works out at a fitness center. She rarely wears a dress–pants are more her style. She has ridden a motorcycle since she was a teenager. I think of our daughter as young, but she’s the same age Aunt Frannie was when she passed away four months after Ken and I were married.

Two women who share the name Frances illustrate how times changed. Once in a while, I believe it’s a good idea to stop and look at how far females have come.

What do you think a woman’s status in the world is today?

My longtime friend, Gloria, and I were catching up by phone. My husband and I had spent six days with our children and grandchildren at Disney World in Florida. I said, “At the resort, Kurt and Sandy had adjoining rooms with Katelyn and Jacob. Ken and I shared a room with Lisa. I thought it worked out well.”

Gloria responded, “Good. Nobody had to be in a room alone. When I traveled for United, I hated being in a hotel room alone.”

My thought that I didn’t voice–at writers’ conferences, I paid a higher fee to be alone in my hotel room at the end of busy days of lectures, workshops and people.

That’s the difference between the two of us. Gloria, like the majority of the population, is an extrovert, the personality trait typically characterized by outgoingness, high energy and talkativeness.

I identify with the introverts described by Susan Cain in her book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. She writes, “At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking, who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion, who favor working on their own over working in teams.”

Gloria and I probably wouldn’t have become close friends, but we were thrown together in high school when we dated a pair of guys who’d been best buddies since first grade. As time passed, we married those fellows and the camaraderie continued. Through the years, we’ve each learned to shrug our shoulders and say to ourselves, “That’s just the way she is.”

Are you an extrovert or an introvert?

Our developmentally different daughter, Linda, 48, succumbed to breast cancer August 9, 2008. Death is abrupt. One day, I was a busy caregiver–the next, I had little to do. I was filled with grief, relief and guilt. It was a comfort to have cared for her all of her life.

When Linda was a toddler, I’d taught her the classic children’s bedtime prayer that ends, “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” I didn’t expect to see it happen. The loss of a child, no matter what age, takes a piece of a parent’s heart and soul. I can’t replace what is gone–just mend what is left.

All aspects of my everyday changed. Ken and I sat at the ends of our oblong, kitchen table to eat meals. When we gathered as a family of five, our two daughters sat on one side and our son on the other. After Lisa and Kurt left home, we continued our positions. With just the two of us, my husband and I switched to sitting along the opposite sides to bring us closer together.

The next summer, Ken and I spent sixteen days on a tour of Alaska. It was the first time we took a long vacation together. In the past, we’d been fortunate to have caretakers we could hire for a day or an evening when we wanted to get away, but finding someone to stay with our daughter for longer periods was nearly impossible.

Little things remind us of Linda. The Cadbury Easter Bunny commercial made her laugh. Speeding through the dip between two hills on the Stateline Road brought a grin to her face when her stomach did a flip flop. Ken took a bite of a wiener and said, “Remember how Linda always bit into the side instead of the end of her hot dog?

Have you been a caregiver for an adult member of your family?

If a family weathers a wedding or a funeral with everyone still speaking to one another, I think they’ve accomplished a minor miracle. Nothing else creates such upheaval.

Twelve years ago, our developmentally different daughter, Linda, died of breast cancer. Loss of a child regardless of age is the worst thing that can happen to any parent. But it’s a little different when that child is an adult and not able to be independent. We considered it a blessing to care for her all of her life.

Linda’s illness began in January of 2008. I found a lump in her right breast while drying her off after a shower. Following a mastectomy, the surgeon told us he couldn’t remove all of the cancer because it was a fast-growing type that had spread to her lymph nodes. After consulting with the doctors, Ken and I learned chemo and radiation would only prolong her life for a short time, not cure the disease. We decided not to put her through the rigors of treatment. Five months later, a lump in her left breast required a second mastectomy. A few weeks after that, tests confirmed the cancer had spread to her bones and we engaged hospice. Linda, 48, died in her sleep August 9.

As we considered funeral arrangements, I wanted to avoid dissension. I thought about friends who had flare ups in their families when a life-changing event happened. Their complaints invariably began, “You would think as a —-, he or she would —-.” Fill in the blanks. I realized it wasn’t what relatives did that caused upsets but what they were expected to do and didn’t.

The words “accept don’t expect” stuck in my mind from my reading. That seemed like the solution. I would accept whatever each of the six members of our small family did instead of deciding in my own mind what each one should do and expecting it to be done.

How has your family handled a transformative event?

“If I for selfish reasons should cease to write, I steal from God the talent and from you the benefit.” Those words written by Walter Wangerin, Jr., stopped me cold. His column, “Thou Shalt Not Steal,” from the November 1994 issue of The Lutheran magazine is still pinned on my bulletin board.

A person must have talent to accomplish any endeavor. A teenager may be six-foot-two but no amount of instruction or practice can make a basketball player out of a boy or girl who doesn’t start with some natural ability for the game.

Talent may be limited. Our golden anniversary open house was enhanced by our friend, Roger, who plays classic country music in his spare time. During that Saturday afternoon, he strummed his guitar and sang hits by nationally famous performers including Conway Twitty, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson.

Utilizing our talents applies to more than writing stories, playing sports or singing songs. The women serving lunches in diners, driving school buses or performing surgeries use their talents to make a living.

Communities are formed by people with various talents. Persons endowed with leadership gifts step forward to be the mayors assisted by council members. Those who are particular about details become the clerks; math whizzes serve as treasurers.

Retirement may provide the free time needed for a person to develop latent talents. I’ve seen tests advertised that were supposed to reveal hidden talents, but I think by the time we’re older women, we know what we can do and what we can’t.

How do you use your talents?

After our three kids were enrolled in school, I acquired two part-time jobs–Rockford Morning Star community correspondent and Durand Township clerk. I read self-help books to learn how to combine working at home with being a housewife and mother. The experts advised setting short-term and long-term goals.

I devised a life plan. My first twenty years had been devoted to me. My goals for the next twenty years would put my family ahead of my freelancing because I chose to marry and have children. By the time I was forty, our kids would no longer need my supervision. I’d still have at least another twenty years to concentrate on my writing.

That idea was shot down when a school psychologist diagnosed Linda as retarded. Through the years, the terminology changed, but our oldest child would never be an independent adult. She attended special education classes provided by the co-op formed by the districts located in Winnebago County outside of Rockford. I joined the parents group seeking to establish a sheltered workshop to employ our children when they no longer attended school.

I often scuttled my plans to adjust to a change in schedule for one of our kids or my husband who worked cop shifts plus moonlighting as a semi driver. I learned to cherish flexibility instead of the frustration of setting goals and not reaching them.

Now, I’m an empty-nester with a retired husband, but I haven’t changed my habits. Once in awhile, an article must be submitted to meet a deadline or a special holiday family dinner prepared, but, most of the time, what doesn’t get done today can be achieved tomorrow or the next day. I believe that, in the long run, I accomplish as much with my flexibility as my goal-setting friends. They probably wouldn’t agree.

Do you set goals or are you flexible?

Saturday, July 18th, marks 68 years Ken has been the man in my life. On a sultry, summer evening in 1952, I was a bored fourteen-year-old strolling around the Davis Days summer festival with my boyfriend, Ronnie. I loved going on the carnival rides, but they made Ronnie sick.

A bold, sixteen-year-old Kenny stepped up to me and asked, “Would you care to ride on the Ferris wheel?”

I ignored the guy beside me and said an enthusiastic, “Yes!” I didn’t realize it then but that was the beginning of us.

My parents didn’t consider me old enough to date until after the new year. Five more months dragged by before Kenny kissed me goodnight.

By the time my steady boyfriend turned eighteen, President Eisenhower had ended the three-year-old Korean conflict with an armistice. The Cold War, a state of political and military tension between the United States and Russia, continued and so did the draft. Instead of waiting to be conscripted into the army for two years, Kenny began a four-year hitch in the navy. We were in love and I promised to wait for him.

While Ken was aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Bennington seeing the world, doctors diagnosed my lingering cough as tuberculosis. I spent five months in a TB sanitarium recovering from the life-threatening disease.

Seven years after that first Ferris wheel ride, Ken and I were married. We settled on the farm where he was working for his brother-in-law. I followed the pattern for women at that time and quit my office job to be a housewife and mother.

When Ken joined the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Police, we moved to Durand. After our three kids were enrolled in school, I answered an ad to become a community correspondent for our area daily newspaper, the Rockford Morning Star, and discovered the world of freelance writing.

When I said a frivolous yes to a ride on the Ferris wheel with Kenny, I wasn’t thinking beyond the moment. That simple move led to my having a family and a non-fiction writing career.

This December, Adelaide Books, an independent New York business, will publish my memoir, “The View From a Midwest Ferris Wheel.” It’s the story of our seven-year courtship during the 1950s.

What decisions have changed your life?

The term originated in the computer industry and has entered the vernacular. Young people multitask doing homework on computers while listening to music and checking their cell phones. Their grandmothers soothed fussy babies, answered school-age children’s questions pertaining to homework assignments and cooked suppers before the process had a name.

Scientists have recently found multitasking turns out to be a myth. Only computers are capable of multitasking–the human brain doesn’t do two things simultaneously. People just switch tasks quickly according to a Psychology Today magazine article written by Nancy K. Napier, PhD., a professor at Boise State University. Older brains have more difficulty changing gear rapidly.

The start/stop/start process costs time instead of saving time. Switching may add just a few tenths of a second, but this can add up. For example, if you’re driving a car while texting on a phone, eating an ice cream cone or applying makeup, the accumulated time could cause you to miss a turn-off, run a stop sign or crash into another auto.

Multitaskers make more mistakes and have more trouble tuning out distractions than people who focus on one task. Multitasking may reduce productivity by as much as 40 per cent. Over time, it can sap energy.

Still, most bosses expect their workers to be able to handle multiple priorities to maneuver through a busy day. Employees must balance competitive demands for their time and energy.

Do you attempt several tasks at once or complete one chore before starting another?

Saturday will be the 4th of July, a celebration of our nation’s independence. Let’s also celebrate our own independence. During America’s early history, females were denied some of the basic rights enjoyed by male citizens. Among other things, women couldn’t own property, had no legal claim to money they earned and weren’t allowed to vote in elections.

I think being independent is defining the word for myself–not having someone else tell me what I should do. While growing up, I longed to be free from control, influence, support or help of others. As I matured, I realized that to marry the man I loved and have a family, I would have to make some adjustments. I quit my office job to be a housewife and mother, but that didn’t mean my husband was in charge. We learned to compromise and help each other. He mows the lawn, takes care of a dripping faucet and opens a new jar of mayonnaise. I cook the meals, write the checks to pay our bills and keep our social calendar.

When our three were rug rate, medical expenses piled up and we needed more income. We looked at the dollars and cents of my returning to an office job and hiring care for our kids. Together we decided it would be wiser for him to moonlight like many of his fellow deputies. After our children were enrolled in school, I found part-time employment as Durand Township Clerk and community correspondent for the Rockford Morning Star. Most of the work could be done at home.

As I age, I want to maintain my independence. Last Thanksgiving, I was putting the finishing touches on our family dinner. When I was pouring gravy from a large, frying pan into a bowl, Katelyn stepped up and asked, “Can I help you, Grandma?”

I replied, “No thanks, I’ve got it.” After turning down her offer, I realized it would have been easier if I’d accepted it. I also need to recognize when I can use help.

How do you define independence?