I’ve been looking forward to this day since I was ten years old.

“At the age of ten I watched Grandma brush and pin up her long salt-and-pepper hair. “Grandma,” I said, “you could look twenty years younger if you’d just dye your hair.”

“Why would I want to look twenty years younger?” she asked, sounding truly curious.

She didn’t know? Everyone wants to look twenty years younger, I explained. I was sure of this because I’d seen it on TV.

She kindly told me that twenty years early she’d been forty and hadn’t had anywhere near the experiences she’d had now. “Sixty-year-olds have had much more interesting lives than forty-year-olds,” she said. “Why would I want to look like a less interesting person?”

 Twenty years later an oddly colored strand of hair appeared near my ear. I tugged it loose and showed my best friend. “It looks like it’s filled with air!” I said, holding it up to the light.

“Honey, it’s gray,” she told me gently. After waiting a moment to let me absorb the news, she asked how I felt about it.

“Fine,” I said, a little surprised to feel the truth of it. “I’ve been looking forward to this day since I was ten years old.”

~Andrea Matson-deKay, The Sun Magazine , Readers Write: “Role Models”