As she turns 65, Susan Jacoby reflects with some alarm on her sturdy genes (her mother's on the verge of 90 and her grandmother made it to 100) as well as the baby boomers' conceit that they can keep age at bay:
What I expect... — if I do live as long as the other women in my family — is nothing less than an unremitting struggle, ideally laced with moments of grace. On that day by the riverbank — the last time we saw each other — Gran cast a lingering glance over the water and said, “It’s good to know that the beauty of the world will go on without me.”
If I can say that, in full knowledge of my rapidly approaching extinction, I will consider my life a success — even though I will have failed, as everyone ultimately does, to defy old age.
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