Why age is JUST A NUMBER

Lauren Libbert reflects on an unlikely friendship with a woman 40 years older than her

- LAUREN LIBBERT

Everyone needs an older friend like Sylvia. I often think it’s something the doctor should prescribe alongside HRT to combat the midlife angst and hormonal havoc of these busy, middle years – when half our life is already behind us and we’re looking for a steady compass to direct us north and navigate us through the knotty years ahead.

Sylvia died a few weeks ago after just turning 90; I am 51. We met about six years ago on a course about death and grief at our local synagogue not long after I’d lost my titan of a mother to a cruel blood disease, and my husband and I were separating.

I was not in a good way; I had two children under 10 and was focused on work, stability and keeping a roof over our heads, but I was teetering. I gave Sylvia a lift home and she talked about the losses she’d experienced – her father, mother, brother and beloved husband Maurice – and how she’d grieved and carried on without them ‘because you do somehow, Lauren, you just do’.

The car sat idle outside her house but neither of us showed any intention of getting out, so gripped were we in each other’s stories. When I finally helped her inside and said goodbye, I felt lighter and reassured. Sylvia had survived so many losses, yet here she was, nearing 84 and still having so much curiosity for life and learning and people. She hadn’t been destroyed by grief; it lived inside her and propelled her forward.

Sweeping interests