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Elegy for my generation: 

I’m no poet, so that’s a lie.  But I’m not ready for my generation to be the one dying, to contemplate our mortality on a regular basis.   

Sonnet 73 courtesy of William Shakespeare. Young adult me chose a poem about death to memorize for my college English class. From my Norton Anthology of Poetry, 3rd Edition, 1983. Yes, it still lives on the living room shelf.

My adult life has followed this pattern: 

• Our 20’s were filled with wedding invitations, bridesmaid dresses, college graduations.  By 25 most of us had a degree or a job or even both for the lucky ones.  A fancy dinner at home was making a stir fry to go with frozen egg rolls, cheap wine and chocolates. 
  

• Our 30’s were baby showers and divorces, play groups and Baby Einstein.  Meltdowns and hugs.  Should we sign her up for dance classes or soccer association?  Will she ever sleep in her bed willingly?  Will we ever have a vacation that doesn’t involve us whispering quietly at 7 pm with the bathroom fan running?  We ate mac and cheese and snuck in some broccoli.  Our grandparents started to die—our girls didn’t really know them all that well.  Other deaths were sudden, tragic--trauma, suicide.
  

• 40th birthday parties brought bottles of tequila and pool parties and late nights.  Our metabolisms caught up as our tastes and pocketbooks matured.  The conundrum of now I can afford great food, better wine and cocktails, but if I overindulge, I cannot sleep.   Our girls could put themselves to bed, or at least stay there after being tucked in. Our parents were slowing down, but still attended the recitals and games.  Our children acquired driver’s licenses and independence.  
  

• By our 50th birthdays, we had quieter celebrations. Which was good, since we still had half full bottles of tequila and cake flavored vodka from the 40th birthday parties.  Some of our peers have stopped drinking.  Some have started to develop the diseases we associate with our parents-- high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cancer—but they aren’t dying from them.  They fight through.  The medications are part of the daily routine.  We sign up for the meal train to help the busy family carry on.  They come out on the other side and embrace the gift of more time. The chemo works. 
  

Until it doesn’t.   My wife’s cousin died from advanced breast cancer this week.  She is—was—my age.  No clear explanation, family history, risk factors.   Just a ravaging beast of a malignancy that refused to be beaten down, that reared suddenly and left her in the limbo between diagnosis and hospice.  Time to say goodbyes, to know that this is the end, but not know when.

I am not ready for Gen X funerals to be the new normal.  If I’m honest, I’m not really ready for the Boomers, our parents’ generation, to be dying.  And most of them haven’t yet.  As they slow down further, they shouldn’t also have to bury their children. 

I hope and pray that life will stop interrupting my carefully crafted series of posts on birth control myths and legends. In the meantime, I plan to write my own obituary and find photos for when my loved ones need them. If for no other reason than to reflect on my own life and relish it.

 P.S. Sonnet 73 would be a good one for my funeral.