2025 Geriatric Marvel Award Acceptance Speech

“It is with great honor that I accept this Geriatric Marvel Award. I know so many of us have struggled through what seems like a lifetime of hardships and prayers just to get to this point. Something that comes so easily to others became such a daunting task for us. Analyzing yourself day in and day out wondering why you can’t simply be ‘normal.’ Hating your body for not doing what it was naturally created to do. I want you to know that I see you. The world sees you and you’re not alone. Motherhood is within your grasps!

I remember playing with my dolls as a young girl thinking about how great my life would be. We all know the phrase, first comes love and then comes marriage, right? Never did I imagine that the baby part would be so difficult and yet I prevailed! My daughter is my greatest joy and I love her dearly, but the journey wasn’t easy for me at all. I remember finally getting that positive result and my first doctor’s appointment.

‘Geriatric pregnancy,’ the words resounded in my head for the entire day. I went from feeling like I was on cloud-9 to feeling like a gray-haired granny sitting on the porch shaking her fists at the neighborhood children who dared to step onto her lawn. I didn’t want this to be the foundation that this pregnancy would be built on. If I had to go nine months being called geriatric, I didn’t know what I’d do.

We tried for years to get pregnant, so I wouldn’t take this name-calling lying down. Well, actually, I would. I would lay down for each appointment and be poked and prodded without question. I would even be reassured that if something didn’t look right I ‘always had options.’ My daughter was planned and prayed for, so whatever options there would be for something that didn’t look right weren’t for me. I didn’t need any options. I just needed a pregnancy that was wrapped with a pretty, pink bow-that’s not what I got.

I was in my late thirties when we got pregnant and had no idea that my age meant I would have to see two different doctors, that the appointments would increase as the pregnancy went on and that if I missed an appointment there would be hell to pay. I have always been a bit of a worry wart and pregnancy made it worse, justifiably so. If I didn’t feel a kick or any vague feeling of strangeness, I was sure to gather my things and head to the hospital. Until one day, I was told to stay.

I had developed high blood pressure towards the end of the pregnancy and my doctor decided that I needed bed rest, which landed me in the hospital. I delivered several weeks early and was blessed with the most perfect baby I had ever seen. Life after that would never be the same again.

Adjusting to parenthood was difficult for me. I had post-partum depression and anxiety. Why was motherhood so hard when it was something that I had wanted so badly? And why didn’t life come with a manual? I was in a dark place and missed out on all the things I had pictured in my mind. I didn’t have the option of decorating a baby room, creating a baby book filled with the nostalgia of a perfect pregnancy, or knitting baby booties. My life was in an upheaval. I felt like I was losing my mind and ultimately my marriage.

At forty-two I found myself trying to navigate being newly divorced and a single mother. Nothing could prepare me for the year that followed. Learning to sit in the muck and mire of my life. This mess that I didn’t see coming. This mess that I wasn’t prepared for. This mess that I would eventually realize I was strong enough to navigate. Life has a way of teaching us things about ourselves that we aren’t prepared to learn. Now we know that we must learn these things to move onto our next stage.

Parenting a toddler is a daunting task as well know, but doing so while learning to re-parent yourself is something on a totally different level. Doing the behind-the-scenes work is ugly and tiring. I see your faces ladies. I see the eye bags and the gray hairs. On myself I can see the few extra pounds as well. I want you to know that there is beauty in all of that though. The physical and mental changes show growth. It is behind-the-scenes that we grow the muscles to navigate this life.

We have been given the opportunity to see life differently ladies. I am learning to see life through the lenses of my child. Viewing life from her vantage point is proving to make my life easier than I thought it would. She sees like with slightly different colors than I do. Where I am jaded, she is not. Where my vision of life can be distorted, she sees clearly. She sees the good in all things. She does all the things I would never do. When she paints, she mixes all her colors together because no one has taught her that doing so is inappropriate, yet. She laughs uncontrollably because no one has taught her to make herself small and quiet, yet. She dances wildly because no one has taught her that she must control her movements, yet. As I am learning to re-parent myself and do the work behind-the-scenes, one thing I do know is that I do not plan on anyone ever getting the chance to ‘yet’ my daughter. I am working hard to correct myself and rewire my own brain so that none of my brokenness cuts her.

Ladies we have an amazing opportunity to change the way the world sees us and our children. With the help of them we can paint a new picture as to what Geriatric Marvels can do and who we are. I want to thank you for giving me the chance to speak and I hope that I have lifted some of your spirits. We are all in this thing together-this thing called motherhood. Thank you.”