Ninety

Recently my Grandma Eva and her twin sister Evelyn celebrated their ninetieth birthdays.  Although they are both still in excellent health, I couldn’t help but thinking, “Wow I can’t believe they are sooo old!”  What a terrible thought, one fraught with negative attitude and emotion.  Society has told me 90 is old; when in fact age is nothing more than a number.

Ninety is a number; it is preceded by 89 and followed by 91.  Ninety is a right angle.  Ninety is the distance between bases on a Major League Baseball field. Ninety is the age of Gucci.  Ninety signals a hot day in the USA.  Ninety is the number of minutes in a soccer match.  Ninety is a unitary perfect number.  Ninety was the age of a Galapagos Tortoise who gave birth for the first time this June.    

1921 was ninety years ago.  Ninety years ago Albert Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics; Boeing started to obtain orders for aircraft and abandoned furniture-making; and Coco Chanel introduced "Chanel No. 5".  Einstein’s principals are still central today, Boeing is at the top of current headlines, and Chanel No. 5 is consistently a top selling fragrance.

I challenge everyone to dismiss the limiting principle of numbers as an indicator of age.  Whether someone is 9 or 90 years old treat them with respect, there is undoubtedly something you could learn from them.