Letter to Life

Letter to Life as I approach my 95th birthday

Some things bloom late—but they still bloom beautifully.

At 55,
I became known to many as Hyacinth Bucket — a character I believed would be a small role in a little sitcom. ( Keeping Up Apperiencesbritish TV)
Instead, she carried me into millions of living rooms, and oddly enough… into my own heart.

She was loud, proud, impossible to ignore.
And somehow, she helped me embrace parts of myself I’d kept hidden for decades.

That role didn’t make me famous.
It made me whole.

At 65,
I stopped waiting for permission.
I began learning Italian — not for work, but so I could feel opera in its native tongue.
I discovered I rather liked my own company.
I read poetry aloud to no one in particular, simply because it softened the day.
I learned how to be alone… without being lonely.

At 75,
I returned to the Shakespearean stage — a place I once feared I had aged out of.
But this time, I carried no fear of critics or applause.
I stood in stillness.
And I let the words move through me — not because I had something to prove,
but because they still had something to offer.

It wasn’t a performance.
It was presence.

At 85,
I picked up a watercolor brush with unsure hands.
I painted what I remembered:
roses from my garden, old hats from the 60s, faces once seen on the London Underground.

Not to exhibit. Not to impress.
Just to preserve memory — one soft stroke at a time.
Each painting was a small act of remembering.

And now, at 95,
I write letters by hand.
I bake rye bread.
I breathe deeply in the mornings and whisper thanks to the sky.
I listen more than I speak.
I laugh often, but no longer try to be the one who makes others laugh.

I have nothing left to prove — and so much left to feel.

So I’m writing this not as a farewell,
but as a gentle reminder:

Growing older isn’t a fading.
It can be a radiant unfolding.
A blooming — not back to youth,
but back to yourself.

Let these years ahead be your treasure years.
You don’t need fame.
You don’t need perfection.
You only need a presence.

Show up. Gently. Fully. Authentically.
And life — if you let it — will always meet you halfway.

Written by Patricia Routledge, the actress who played Hyacinth Bucket in ‘Keeping Up Appearances.’

Photo:  Sharon Krushel