The Answer is “Everything”
Podcast: Download (Duration: 5:26 — 2.5MB)
Subscribe: More
I haven’t always been abundance-minded or able to see or believe in life’s silver lining.
When I was 29, my vivacious, lovely mother, Flora, died at age 55. It was heartbreaking and confusing to watch her suffer and deteriorate from an inoperable brain tumor. She had been looking forward to her own third act: becoming an interior decorator and adoring future grandchildren. Since then, I’ve come to realize how ill equipped I was, in so many ways, to cope with the magnitude of this loss.
Since then, despite the many exceptional older women role models I’ve encountered, I realize that the one I lacked was the very one that could enable me to envision my own third act—my own mother. Over the years, no matter how I tried, I simply could not picture myself as a woman beyond age 55. A friend suggested I get an age progression photo of myself done. I passed on that, although it was tempting to catch a glimpse of myself, silver-haired and etched with wisdom and a life fully lived, posing with grandchildren at high school graduations.
Then something stunning happened. I was enjoying a glass of wine after conducting a wedding in November 2010. It was the last wedding in a long season of weddings during which I had eaten my weight in hors d’oeuvres. My voice was raggedy and hoarse as I shared my weariness with an older guest seated at my table. She looked at me warmly with sparkling blue eyes and said, “You need to take care of yourself, Reverend. You are going to live a long time.”
I was dumbstruck. “How do you know that?” I asked quietly. “Well, because I do,” she replied, her graceful smile framed by shiny silver hair. “Take care of yourself; you’re going to live a long time.” This encounter caused me to examine how little confidence I had in my longevity, and how that had affected my daily wrestling match with life. I thought about how controlling I could be, how frantic I felt at times to get things accomplished, to see my children through milestones, to sustain normalcy. I would hold my breath waiting for results from annual physicals and mammograms. At times, I worried that I was cursed and destined to repeat my mother’s karma. I had trouble planning for old age because I didn’t have any tangible sense of it. Some days it felt like I was just tearing pages off a calendar in some doomsday countdown.
And I grew tired of this cycle. I made the decision to set a new course and embark on a new road, and I moved home to Pittsburgh. Then I turned 55, the same age as my mother when she passed. How could this be? It made no sense. I feel so young, so full of life. How could she have died at this age? I went to visit her grave on my birthday to read the inscription we had chosen: “Beautiful and Noble Spirit.” And the tragedy of her early demise took on a new dimension.
Later that day, I was out walking my dog, feeling a familiar malaise again— the old fear, the belief that the future had no shape and was too flimsy to grasp. And a question came to me, somewhat self-pitying, given all my relative blessings: What can I look forward to? The toxic chatterbox in my head was stirring up trouble again. Nothing, she sneered. The loop began:
I’m not partnered; I’m not sure what will happen in my ministry or career. Really, what can I look forward to? Nothing.
As I ambled along Mifflin Ave, crocuses were popping up through the spring soil, and a different voice (perhaps the voice of the wise wedding guest or my mother) broke through the gremlin’s drone and said softly, Everything, Robin. You can look forward to everything, if you choose to. Looking forward is a choice. Being willing to look forward to everything, come what may, is a decision that is open to you now. The answer is “Everything.”
The answer is “Everything”.
Rev. Zucker received her Masters of Divinity from Harvard and was ordained to the UU ministry in 2000. She is in final fellowship with the UUA. Robin served two New England congregations and worked as a professional hospice chaplain prior to launching her community ministries.
She grew up in Pittsburgh and returned home in 2011 after 30 plus years in the Boston area, where she raised her two children (Sam, 28 and Michaela, 24). She lives in the city with her rescue dog, Kip, and has enjoyed playing with the First Unitarian Folk Orchestra, exploring the Laurel Highlands and lakes of the regions, and volunteering with a variety of organizations and groups.
- The Answer is “Everything” - October 1, 2015
