“Wow, life truly simply happens whether we pay close attention to all the minute details or not. I intend to age with gratitude knowing I am giving life all I’ve got.

I was sorting through my medical kits in my bedroom and my kitchen upper cupboard intending to check the expiry dates and throw out those beyond their shelf life. The first aid cream, my favorite handy cure-most-minor-cuts-stings-burns-abrasions one, was easy enough to read. The expiry date is in bold font and printed in distinctly black ink while all the surrounding writing is either blue on white or white on blue.

However, for many of the medicines and ointments in those medical kits, I was alternating between extending my arms and pulling them closer in an effort to focus my vision on the printed dates to no avail. Just like that I realized I am already at that age. No denying now. From here on I must always keep reading glasses by my side.

This reminds me of the time when, after I posted a family photo on my Facebook timeline several years ago, my friend and kumare commented that my son, who is her baptismal inaanak, was already taller than me. I was stumped! “Is he?” I thought to myself. When we got home from school and work that day, I quickly gathered everyone in our lounge, stood back to back with my son and asked my husband and daughter to check our heights. He was indeed already taller than me!

Our lives are happily filled with errands, deadlines, appointments, responsibilities and commitments. It amazes me that with what seems like the blink of an eye, I am suddenly needing reading glasses and my children are now teenagers. Wow, life truly simply happens whether we pay close attention to all the minute details or not. I intend to age with gratitude knowing I am giving life all I’ve got.

In keeping with All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days this weekend, I say a prayer for my dearly departed loved ones, think of my maternal grandmother Lola Lili most especially, and am comforted in recalling her life which was definitely well-lived.

It took half a lifetime to get to where I am now, I will embrace it — reading glasses and all.