KEVIN’S CORNER
KEVIN SALUTES A VERY SPECIAL LADY
Recently my wife Linda and I went to our first-ever 90th birthday of a friend. We’ve been to a wonderful 90th before, but that was a family occasion. To see a birthday invite on your table from a friend with 90 on it does stop you in your tracks.
My great-aunt Eva was the first nonagenarian I knew. Most of the time we spent together, I was standing next to her bed and she was in it. This worked well because, as I was just little, our heads were the same height. So, we could chat, play simple board games and, best of all, I could open her presents. Aunty Eva always bought me gifts. She was unmarried and had no kids of her own to buy for.
On the occasions she did go out, she always wore dark colours. This accentuated her age. I wonder now whether she wore black because she lost three brothers in WW1. Dear Eva, I miss her.
How 90-year-olds have changed. There’s much to love about our friend Sheila, whose 90th we went to. Sheila’s a horsey friend of my wife’s. Linda keeps her horses on her land. Sheila adores horses. Her great regret is that, for her 90th, no one would assist her to mount her favourite horse Prince. Given Sheila hasn’t been on a horse since she was about 80, and that ended in injury, family and friends may have acted wisely.
Sheila’s all class. She’s a glorious-looking woman with the twinkliest eyes. She’d have been a party girl. We wonder how striking she must have looked on her wedding day, but she won’t show us the photos. Brought up well in England, she has almost a royal bearing. She speaks carefully and selectively, and listens more than talks. Having said all that, at 90 she cannot suppress a sense of naughtiness. If walls could talk!
I suppose an invitation from a friend to their 90th birthday stops us in our tracks because it also ages us. But what’s age but a number? Sure, Sheila couldn’t make it onto her horse, but I couldn’t make it onto our horse either. And I’m just a kid.