We have been gay, going our way
Life has been beautiful, we have been young
After you’ve gone, life will go on
Like an old song we have sung
When I grow too old to dream
I’ll have you to remember
When I grow too old to dream
Your love will live in my heart
So, kiss me my sweet
And so let us part
And when I grow too old to dream
That kiss will live in my heart
And when I grow too old to dream
That kiss will live in my heart
So, kiss me my sweet
And so let us part
And when I grow too old to dream
That kiss will live in my heart.
The song was born in 1934—at the height of Mother’s vibrant, independent life. It held all the magic that Sigmund Romberg could entwine in its notes and all the longing that Oscar Hammerstein could suffuse in its lyrics. A simple poem that made me want to cry every time Mother sang it. Before I could say or spell “poignant.” I did not want Mother to grow old. I did not want her to stop dreaming.
Our lives were rich in music. At church, a huge pipe organ, choirs, a grand piano, and a congregation capable of singing four-part harmony unaccompanied. At home, my folks often slid their classical 78s onto our Stromberg Carlson record player. The hinged piano stool held sheet music for “When I Grow Too Old” and other ballads from Mother’s bachelorette days. When trips got long, we sang in the car: She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain; Old Black Joe; Day is Dying in the West.
But Mother sang When I Grow Too Old to Dream largely to herself or to Sonja and me. She intended, I know, to assure us of her love for us, of our preciousness—that we would be her last memories. But the song seemed also to hold Mother’s history–much like her unopened trunk stored in our windowless basement backroom. Mementoes of Mother’s travel-rich, teaching years. Maybe keepsakes of others she had loved.
Mother is gone almost thirty years. I’m conscious of the questions that I never asked her. Of the likelihood that there were chapters in her life that she had little opportunity or freedom to share. I visit again the grief I felt when—having lost her sight—she began to lose her bearings and her ability to speak. I hope so very much that then she could remember our love, our kisses, our hugs—all of them—even the ones we gave so stingily in our teens. And the earlier memories—the ones that predated us. The ones she sang about.
I am a decade younger than Mother when she died. But I am an “old” that surely does not dream grand adventures or loves or accomplishments. Or when I do, I edit them with the realities of wonky hearing and uncooperative knees. Modest dreams. It’s a provocative and complicated “old.” Many of the companions and icons who I’ve treasured are gone. And be it measured by knees or ears or obituaries, I live in the limbo, the far fields of my time on earth.
In fact, I am at a place in my life where—as in these essays—remembering becomes joyful and soothing and intriguing. Anchored in powerful friendships, incredible opportunities, travel, work that I held sacred, a family that surrounds me still, beauty, a passion for words.
And, yes, I think about and grieve a bit for what my own future will not hold. And what it will. As I think Mother did. For the “lasts.” For the steady and wise surrender of belongings and bonds that we cannot take with us. And for the “firsts” that will not come again—the disbeliefs and joy that blew me back when I stepped off the plane onto European soil; or felt the dark and fraught power of Arlington Cemetery at night or the unfathomable breadth and color of the Grand Canyon. Or Montana skies.
And still, as Mother sang, I revel in the memories that are the bread and wine of my life, the communion with this incredible universe. ©
