I once saw a mermaid. I was at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, walking through the park with my family, when I saw her sitting on a bench next to a fountain. I only caught a glimpse of her, but it was enough to give me two impressions: She is a mermaid, and She is the most beautiful mermaid in the world.

My mermaid was old, her face lined with wrinkles and framed by short gray hair. She smiled beautifully. She wore a tube top of blue, bright blue from the sun shining over the deepest parts of the ocean. Over it I saw her shoulders and the beginnings of her breasts, wrinkled and spotted with age. This mermaid was not ashamed of her maturing flesh, but wore it proudly, so that we could all see the nymph who still lived inside. She may have worn a filmy, translucent blouse to cover her shoulders, but I don’t remember. I do remember her skirt. It was blue-green like the Mediterranean Sea, and it extended to her ankles in one straight sheath. It was the skirt that gave her away: I knew that it hid her tail, her powerful tail for swimming through those deepest parts of the ocean.

I do not remember the color of her bright-smiling eyes, but I imagine them being blue-green to match her skirt. I can just see her rising gracefully from the bench and diving perfectly into the ocean, waving one last time at us before she disappears beneath the dancing waves. Even in one short glance, I could see that this woman was full of the magic of life. Only a truly beautiful, life-filled woman could have sat on a bench in a park and so captured my mind, my imagination, giving me such a vivid image of a fantastical mermaid to carry with me.

I marvel at the richness of the life God has given us. Growing older is so often seen as a curse in our world that worships at the altar of Youth. So many women and men spend so much money concealing the signs of their age: washing or plucking out the gray hairs, slathering on moisturizers and make-ups to hide wrinkles, covering up bare heads with false hair. I am still young, but I have often wondered how I will handle aging. Will I fight it, as so many of us do? Or will I accept it with grace, as my mermaid did? I don’t think I need to wonder any more.