— How a longtime husband copes with his changing appearance. Humor helps.
“Are you the father of the deceased?”
This jarring question came from a woman I did not know at a relative’s memorial service a couple years ago. The reason it was jarring? The deceased had died at age 59, and at that time I was 52. Plus, I was with my two daughters, ages 18 and 21, who couldn’t resist a chuckle as I pointed to the 86-year-old father of the deceased and said: “No, that’s him over there.”
That was the first (and so far, the only) time I have been mistaken for an 86-year-old. But it was the latest incident in my complicated, triangular relationship with my chronological age (how old I am), my “subjective” age (how old I feel) and what I call my “apparent” age (how old I look).
I have always looked older than my age, which was a benefit back in high school when I grew a mustache and beard by tenth grade.
I have always looked older than my age, which was a benefit back in high school when I grew a mustache and beard by tenth grade. As a teenage boy, looking older creates mystique and prompts awe-stricken fellow students to ask if you can buy them beer.
The flip side, however, was my early signs of balding. As a baseball teammate exclaimed one day, “Dude, you’re going to have a widow’s peak!” I didn’t know what that meant, but it did not sound good.
By the end of high school (and the beginning of my hairline’s retreat), I decided to embrace my “inner balding man” and go for laughs, in part because he’s always visible on the outside anyway. My first performance of this approach occurred in my early 20s during my toast at my older brother Mark’s wedding.
After informing the crowd that I was Mark’s older brother, I mentioned that I used to be his younger brother. Then I recounted our recent trip to a bar where my four-years-older-than-me brother had to show his I.D. while I did not, which “proved” that my age had bypassed his age.
My 20s also featured meeting and eventually marrying my beautiful wife, Michele, who is two years younger than me and has always had a “baby face.” We have been together for 34 years, and thanks to genetics, rigorous self-care and regular moisturizing, she still looks much younger than her age (more on that soon).
The Hits Kept Coming
When I was 28 and took her to my 10-year high school reunion, I was embarrassed for her to hear a former classmate who was gobsmacked by my hairline state: “Vince, you look so … old.” All I could think to say was “thanks, it’s nice to see you too!”
“My dad doesn’t need many haircuts because he only has half-hair!”
In my 30s, the hits kept coming. Michele and I now had two young daughters, and one day the five-year-old boy who lived next door was playing with our older daughter, Lauren. When the kids were on our backyard swings, the boy pointed at me and said: “Hey, maybe your grandpa can push us!” For a moment, I thought my father or father-in-law had shown up behind me.
This embarrassing incident was followed by six-year-old Lauren making me squirm at a salon. During one of her chatty haircuts, she was telling the stylist about the hairdos of her mother and sister. Then she pointed at me and announced to a crowd: “My dad doesn’t need many haircuts because he only has half-hair!”
In my early 40s, as I continued to age and Michele continued to moisturize, the inevitable happened: my wife was mistaken for one of my children. At a science center, our family of what I saw as obviously two adults and two children approached the ticket window. The woman glanced at us and said to me: “One adult and three kids?” Michele shot me a sympathetic smile but also got a laugh out of that one.
Our Aging Discrepancies
Laughter, indeed, has been a way for Michele and me to bond over our aging discrepancies. At one of our recent wedding anniversary dinners, I gave Michele a bonus present right before dinner. The gift? Admitting that after I dropped her off, parked the car, and entered the restaurant, the host said to me: “Let me show you to your daughter’s table.”
Better coping mechanisms have been humor and an appreciation of my health, which continues to be good thanks in part to regular exercise.
Now in my 50s, I have learned to accept the things I cannot change about my appearance. There were times when I considered Rogaine or a hairpiece, but those didn’t feel right for me. Better coping mechanisms have been humor and an appreciation of my health, which continues to be good thanks in part to regular exercise.
Another coping strategy has been to reframe my aging conundrum into sunnier terms. Rather than lament that I’m in my 50s but appear to be in my 80s, I take pride in how spry I must look to strangers whenever I do yardwork, lift something heavy, or just move quickly. I imagine their low expectations leading to thoughts like “that 80-year-old moves like a 50-year-old!”
People sometimes describe pregnant women as “eating for two,” though my baby-faced wife never liked that phrase during her pregnancies years ago. But it seems that during our long relationship I have been taking the burden of aging off her plate, so to speak, by “aging for two.”
Granted, there are far more cultural pressures placed on women than on men when it comes to aging gracefully. And the unfair social penalties for women in their 50s who may look older than their chronological age are nothing to laugh about.
Still, my wife and I continue to enjoy the absurdities of (mostly my) aging. At a recent wake, a relative who had not seen me in many years actually asked Michele out of my earshot: “Where is your husband?” When Michele pointed at me, the woman asked as if seeing a ghost: “That’s Vince?!” Clearly, I had become unrecognizable — you might even say “deceased” — to the woman.
At least I wasn’t mistaken for the ghost’s father.
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