Frances Stebbins
Correspondent
{This is a memory from the six decades the author has spent writing about faith communities in daily, weekly and monthly news publications covering the western third of Virginia.}
I wasn’t expecting any attention this year when my birthday rolled around last week, but perhaps because of COVID-19, social media, these ‘’Give Light” Memoirs or just that I’ve reached an age to remember a bit about the Great Depression and a lot about World War II, it was the most satisfying one I’ve had for many years.
Having just viewed the past Sunday’s worship service online where my minister rhetorically asked “What do you desire in life?” I suppose I could say it is contact with people I care for. For my birthday this year this contact came in the form of a dozen cards and notes, several warmly personal phone calls and even an hour-long visit from a woman I had known only casually from meetings I usually attend weekly in “normal” times.
If I can find anything positive about COVID-19, it is this renewing of former relationships and the making of new ones. A beautiful gift.
My son, who lives not far away but does not stay in touch with me as often as I would like, called to bring me up to date on his work situation. My daughter, who lives far away but does stay in close contact, made sure I had enjoyed my day.
To be sure, the birthday brought back memories of the husband and a son no longer with me; this experience is common for those in their tenth decade of life. And there was news of serious illness in several persons I once knew well; I was asked to pray for them. I’ll let them know of my concern.
When one reaches the tenth decade, such news is all too common. Even before COVID-19 brought increased anxiety for ourselves and our loved ones, members of most familiar churches are rapidly diminishing. Older ones like myself must face the reality of a congregation’s demise, especially in rural areas, small towns or declining city neighborhoods.
Our many sources of news these days reveal that supporting a faith community with weekly attendance and money is not important to a great many households.
In a meaningful conversation from one of my telephone well-wishers, I heard the unspoken question we news folk often put to those who have lived for many years: To what do you attribute your long life?
I’ll state it here. My frequent sense of being in touch with what some refer to as a “Higher Power” or “the God of my understanding” to whom I turn many times daily both in thanks for the good that happens to me as well as in appealing for help in the daily adjustments of a senior adult living independently alone.
Another great gift is my ability to do what I’m doing now. That’s writing from my heart for publication and being read especially by persons whose daily life is more concerned with the past than with the future, for it lies, as musical spirituals remind us, “in a land across the River.”
It seems that adults whose major enjoyment in life comes from their own creativity in music, painting, writing or in the joy of teaching others are vital for more years than those whose work is dependent on a money-making enterprise.
My two surviving children, both of whom recently celebrated birthdays in their seventh decade and are approaching retirement from well-paying industries, are becoming aware of their need to find meaningful activity for their years to come. I have seen that adjustment to retirement is often not easy; sometimes it leads to decline and death.
In the daily Roanoke newspaper, an alarming decline is apparent. For more than 40 years it provided money and satisfaction to both my late husband and me. Readers, many of long duration who scan obituaries daily, have been asked in a prominent advertisement to appeal to the new out-of-state publisher that the paper not shut down. (A relative in California recently wrote me that her small city’s has.) I share parts of mine with helpful neighbors.
In a summer where the hot weather has been news, I noticed that a record temperature of 101 degrees was felt in Roanoke on my first birthday in 1930. My late mother had recalled that summer in Charlottesville with horror; it was the first year of the Great Depression and she had recently lost both her husband and a favorite sister, the latter from a delayed effect of the infamous virus of 1918 that we’re now hearing about again.
Another birthday, another year. Life goes on.
Following up two recent memory columns on the Oak Grove neighborhood in Roanoke County, I learned that the inspiring church services in the forest glade are possible because in July 2011, Jason Snebold, then aspiring to an Eagle Scout award in the troop sponsored by the nearby Church of the Brethren, cleared away forest debris on the acre behind the church. I met the young man on a sweaty afternoon.
