Old age is for walking humbly with our God. It’s when our worldly strengths betray us, and each day brings losses of family, friends, personal strengths, and sometimes even memories.

Often, like Jesus on His cross, we feel abandoned even by God and are called to trust in the emptiness of our loneliness.

It’s the last part of the spiritual journey. It takes clinging to the tiny signs of grace, like a beautiful butterfly outside our window or a smile from a baby in the grocery store. Thank God, we haven’t become invisible to babies. Our biggest challenge each day is getting up to face it. Our gift for each other now is shared laughter at something embarrassing that’s peculiar to age. Shared laughter, particularly at ourselves, is the saving grace of old age. At eighty-eight, I get to laugh a lot even when alone each day, at my comedy of errors.

My favorite LOL (Little Old Lady) story is of the elderly woman with Alzheimer’s in the nursing home when an aide was helping her get into her nightgown. She turned to the aide and said, “What is my name? I can’t remember it.” Before the aide could respond, she said, “Never mind,” pointing to a painting of Jesus on the wall. “He knows my name. That’s all that matters.”