An Elder Who Still Dreams

Grief, Grace, and the Quiet Power of Becoming at 67

This week, I turned 67.

It’s not a round number. Not a milestone society makes much of. But it feels significant—like an inward bell has rung. Sixty-seven carries a quiet gravity. In numerology, 6 is the nurturer, the one tied to home, healing, and responsibility. 7 is the seeker, the spiritualist, the one who walks alone with questions no one else dares to ask. Together, they form the elder who still dreams—the one who still searches. The one who has lost much—and yet continues.

Because I have lost much.

Since entering my 60s, I’ve lost my father, my son, and my brother—each a thread woven deep into the fabric of who I am. Their absences weren’t just losses but ruptures in the story I thought I was living. In the aftermath of each, I was forced to learn a new language of love—one that spoke less of forever and more of presence. One that understood goodbye not as an ending, but as an opening into something quieter, stranger, and sacred.

There is no handbook for becoming an elder, no ceremony, no title bestowed. Only this: grief that carves you open and the grace to stay open. Being an elder means carrying memory not as a burden but as an offering. It means speaking when it matters and staying silent when silence carries more wisdom. It means bearing witness, not needing to be the center.

I’ve lived through a global pandemic that blurred time, reshaped community, and forced the world to face its fragility. And now I live in a nation divided, trembling under the weight of its own reflection. Trump 1 tested our institutions. Trump 2—just months in—already is a reckoning. The air hums with anxiety, and hope can feel naïve. But perhaps hope has always been an act of rebellion.

And yet…

I am still here. Still writing.

Since turning 60, I’ve written novels that have come into the world through my hands, not as escape, but as embodiment. Each story carried a fragment of truth I couldn't yet name. Each chapter became a stepping stone through grief, confusion, and transformation. I did not write to be heard—I wrote to stay awake.

And in the space beneath the noise of the world, something else stirred: a spiritual awareness. Not tied to dogma, not inherited, but awakened. A knowing. A remembering. I’ve stopped chasing certainty. I’ve started listening for meaning in the places where silence settles.

All the while, the business I began over 40 years ago—my humble window covering venture—has continued to grow. While so much of the world has crumbled or changed beyond recognition, this work of craft and commitment has endured through numerous challenges and rewards. It is, in its own way, a sacred practice. It keeps me rooted. It reminds me that beauty and function still matter.

What does turning 67 mean?

It means I’ve lived long enough to know that wisdom isn’t something you achieve—it’s something you wear like weathered skin. It means I’ve seen the world from the heights of joy and the depths of sorrow—and I no longer fear either. It means I understand that creation is an act of defiance. That love—true love—is not possession but presence. That forgiveness is a daily practice, not a single gesture.

It means I know how to hold grief in one hand and gratitude in the other.

It means I have not been undone by the fire.

I have been tempered.

So as I embark upon this sixty-eighth revolution around the sun, I do so not as someone who has arrived, but as someone becoming what I was always meant to be: an elder in the truest sense. With pen in hand. With breath in my lungs. With love that still surprises me.

And yes—still writing.