How To Treat A 57-year-old Woman

 

If you’re a lady ten years her senior and you don’t know her from Eve, but you talk to her anyway as you get up from your seat in a McDonald’s booth where you’ve been having a snack with your friend. You walk by the table where’s she’s sitting with her elderly friend, munching fries and chatting, and you say to her in a casual but friendly, sincere manner, “By the way, I really like your dress.”

If you’re an 8-year-old son in a family who has just welcomed a new baby and you’re impressed with the meal she made to help out your mom, you dig into the Butterfingers Delight for a second helping and exclaim, “This should be called ‘Hallelujah Dessert’!”

If you’re a young lady from her church and you’re taking part in the feet-washing aspect of a Communion Sunday service for the first time and she offers to partner with you at the water basin, you accept. When it is your turn to kneel and “gird the towel” for her, your glance takes in her skinny toes and cracked heels, but you look up and tell her, “I don’t know if anyone ever told you this before, but you have beautiful feet.”

If you’re her dad, and on her birthday you’re far away from her home and away from your own home at a church function, you take a break after lunch and go for a bit of a walk away from the noise and bustle of the event so you can phone her. In the conversation, you reminisce about the day she was born (It was just as brilliantly sunny as this day is, and you were so excited about being dad for the first time – to TWO baby girls – that you could hardly keep your feet on the ground) and ask her the familiar questions such as “Are you doing anything special to celebrate?” and then just before ending the call, you gather up your fatherly affection and advice and affirmation and roll it into one heartfelt statement: “Love you, Daughter.”

If she’s not your mom biologically or otherwisely, (after all, you’re old enough to be her mom) but she has mothered you in kind of a roundabout way, you send her a card and/or call her to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. With genuine pleasure you enter into the joy of her family gathering ‘round and rising up to call her blessed. (This in spite of your personal never-to-be-fulfilled longing to have your own children and grandchildren.)

If you’re a peer of hers who knows your way around in the areas of food, art, politics, and nearly everything else better than she does, you enjoy hanging out with her anyway. When you ride with her to a ladies’ party at a restaurant in town, and she’s maneuvering the route in the city rather confidently, you declare, “You drive these back streets like a pro!”

If you notice her love of photography and you’re a noticer of beauty/lover of creativity yourself, you send her a note including the words “…thank you so much for faithfully taking and sharing your beautiful photos. It’s not listed as a spiritual gift, it certainly seems akin to being one, in my opinion. To realize the beauty of little moments and scenes, and then to be willing to pause and be present enough to take a photo of them…”

If you wear titles such as Prolific Writer of Books as well as The Ann Landers of MennoWorld, and you happen to have a little “writery” tete-a-tete with her at a conference, you (in the midst of your Opinions on a certain subject) listen to her piece of wisdom (that she’s not even giving as such), and then you turn around and quote her in one of your blog posts because her “What would you advise instead?” stinger of a question would not stop buzzing in your head.

If you’re a reader (male or female) of Dani’s Discoveries, you sometimes stop and tell her, when you see her and she’s least expecting to hear it, that you read her blog. And you make it sound like reading it is an enjoyable experience.

If you’re someone who has just read this blog post, instead of thinking that wow, now there’s one 57-year-old woman who is obsessed with affirmation, you acknowledge the impact of a word fitly spoken. You decide that when something impresses you favorably about someone, be they 7 or 57 or 97, you’ll take a moment to mention it to them in sincerity. You realize that they could get all shy or inwardly spluttery about it. (Pretty dress, what!? This ancient, faded, “pilly” thing? I wasn’t planning to wear it to town, but I forgot to change before coming to McDonald’s!) But you do it anyway, because you just might make their day. Or month. Or year.