The subject of this book will definitely arouse emotion in the reader, which emotions are strongest will depend on the age of the reader, I think. The author is now 85-years-old. When she began these letters to her cousin, she was 83, and as far as I can tell, the only difference caused by the passage of time is the inevitable decline of her health. Her mind is fully functioning, however. How you face aging and its end result, fear it and deal with it, is what she writes about. As she does it, however, she encourages living life with love, living it fully and embracing it joyfully, the beginning and the end. I found myself alternately smiling and tearing up. I also found myself shaking my head in agreement with Sophy, as she wrote about her thoughts on getting old and dying, but for me, she really presented a message about how to live a good life and how to keep on living it with a smile, as well.
In a series of unmailed letters to her cousin Eleanor, and four letters she has written to herself every twenty-one years, beginning with her twenty-first birthday, she explains her feelings about aging and dying to the reader. Sophy didn’t open the prior letter to herself until she wrote the one to follow. She has only recently written the last one, knowing she might not ever get to read it. How did she change from the tender age of 21 to the ripe old age of 84, her age when she wrote the final letter? Now at 85, she hopes to continue to go on living well and with love.
The book begins when cousin Eleanor asks her Aunt Sophy what is it like being old. She had just turned 59, and thought that 60 would be traumatizing. To an octogenarian, 60 is just a child. The query sets Sophy off on a course of letter-writing to Eleanor. These letters serve another purpose. They take her down memory lane and allow her to examine her own life, how she has lived it and how she intends to continue to live it. Interspersed on the pages of this true story are philosophical quotes supporting her own philosophy of life. They are generally uplifting and are good advice for the reader.
Is Sophy afraid of death? Is death as final as we think or is there something else afterward? At Sophy’s age, living demands coping with the detritus of age. She explains how she manages it and until her latest 85th birthday, she was riding her horse with fervor. She still rides, but more slowly. As we age, life does become more of an active effort, but life does go on, and it should go on with a smile. The book tries to encourage the reader not to fear death, but to embrace its possibility by living every day to the fullest. Perhaps death is not the end, but the beginning. Let love guide the reader, and let the living/reading begin!