My Mother's Daughter

I walk fast. I inherited this trait from my mother. I always thought that this was not a positive trait. I wasn’t ashamed of it. I didn’t try to change it. I just knew I wasn’t perfect. I didn’t fit into the ideal image of a proper Vietnamese young lady who carries herself in a graceful manner. I thought walking fast also meant I wasn’t relaxed and that wasn’t good for my mental health. I thought I needed to slow down to smell the roses and sometimes I did, but my basic instinct is to walk fast each time I take a walk. My mom used to tell me she was a very good walker. During the wars between the French and Vietnamese Nationalists, she walked long distances from the village where she lived to far away villages inhabited by the mountain people. She brought and sold white cloth to the mountain people, had the white cloth dyed with different colors, and brought the colored cloth back to her village to sell. One time, my mom was hiking in Shenandoah National Park with us and our dog Cupid. It was a long hike with elevation gains. At one point, Cupid slowed down. My husband remarked “Cupid is 70 years old in people’s years.” My mom wasn’t impressed, “And I am eighty!” Nine years ago, we had a family reunion in Outer Banks. While visiting the Wright Brothers National Memorial, I asked my mom where she’d like to explore next. There was a group of us (mostly adult males) heading to one location. I asked my mom if she wanted to follow them or to explore another part of the park. She said to go to another part, because “those people walk too slowly.” I love to tell this story. My mom was 90 years old then. She is now 99. I take her on a daily walk. I slow my steps for her. Despite her advanced age, my mom still has the tendency to walk fast. Sometimes my mom has this energy that fuels her steps and that causes me to have to increase my pace to keep up with her. I’ve been telling her to slow down because I don’t want her to exhaust herself. But I just read an article about the factors that affect longevity.  This is from the article How Old Are You (Really)? in the April-May 2026 issue of the AARP magazine: “People who rated their walking speed as brisk had the longest life expectancy out of nearly half a million middle-aged adults studied, compared with slow walkers – no matter their body mass index (BMI) – according to an analysis in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.” So now I have to rethink my approach. I may have to encourage my mom to walk fast, or at least to not tell her to stop walking fast. I probably inherited the longevity gene from my mom since I inherited the brisk walking gene. By choosing the “Brisk” answer to the question “How would you describe your usual walking pace?” AARP says I can subtract as many as 14 years from my chronological age to arrive at my biological age. How about that? I am glad I am my mother’s daughter.