2025 40 Over 40 Series: Pattye Meagher

One of the greatest gifts of being in my 60s is contentment. I have had a wonderfully interesting life. I worked in Washington, D.C., met elected officials and world leaders, traveled extensively both professionally and personally, and met people from just about every walk of life. All of those experiences have given me perspective, but these days I find myself appreciating the simplest things.

I love my home. I love my dogs. I love sitting on my patio watching a beautiful Coastal Mississippi sunset while they play in the yard. The quiet that might once have made me restless is comforting to me now. I also care far less about what other people think of me. There is tremendous freedom in that.

Professionally, I have the career I always wanted, but I am no longer looking for the next big move. I want to finish well. I think of this season as my final professional act, and I want to make it a great one by doing everything I can to promote Coastal Mississippi and the people and places that make it so special.

There are challenges, of course. Aging isn’t always easy, and my body occasionally reminds me that it isn’t 30 even when my mind thinks it is. After being a caregiver for two decades, I have also realized that taking care of my own health has to be a priority.

Retirement decisions can be intimidating when every decision and its consequences ultimately belong to me. But the greatest challenge is still learning who I am without Tom. Part of that has been learning to be kinder to myself. I am doing the best I can with a life I never expected to be living on my own. I don’t always get it right. I make decisions I second-guess and mistakes I wish I hadn’t made, but I am learning not to be so hard on myself. Those mistakes are part of growing, too. At 61, I am still learning, still changing, still growing, and still becoming.

That is also where my faith becomes most important. I believe God still has work for me to do. My job is to stay close enough to Him to recognize the path He has prepared for me, while giving myself a little grace when I stumble along the way.

That uncertainty can be frightening, but it can also be exhilarating. This year I traveled through Europe alone for two weeks. I walked everywhere, explored on my own and discovered something important: I genuinely enjoy my own company. I am becoming a little fearless again, and I really like that.

What has been your favorite decade you have lived through and why?

My 30s were probably my happiest decade. I was hitting my professional stride in Washington, D.C., had a wonderful circle of friends, and, most importantly, I met Tom and chose a life with him. The first years of our marriage were magical.

Then came his cancer diagnosis, and life changed. We became more cautious and measured about what we could do, but we never stopped enjoying our life together. We simply learned to make the most of what was possible rather than mourning what was not.

If my 30s were my happiest decade, my 40s and 50s probably formed me the most. I took on greater responsibility for our family financially while also helping manage Tom’s healthcare. Where we lived and many of the choices we made were shaped by where I could find work and what was best for us as a family. Those years taught me resilience, responsibility, commitment and what it really means to love someone through both sickness and health.

I was pretty fearless in my 20s, and somewhere along the way some of that faded. One of the surprises of my 60s is that I can feel a little of that fearlessness coming back. It is different now, though. It isn’t the fearlessness of youth. It comes from knowing what I have already lived through and trusting God with what I haven’t.

If given the opportunity, what would you do differently?

Honestly, I don’t think I would change anything.

Tom and I made our decisions together, and even during the difficult years, I believed God was leading us. I now have the luxury of looking backward and seeing why some things had to happen the way they did to bring me to where I am today.

If I could give my younger self advice, I would tell her to trust God sooner instead of needing to understand His plan, stop trying so hard to control outcomes, and remember that careers matter, but relationships are what remain.

The same God who led Tom and me through our life together is still leading me now. I don’t always know where He is taking me, but I have learned that I don’t have to know the destination to trust the One leading me to the outcome.

I went into the experience both excited and a little apprehensive. Being photographed this way at 61 felt somewhat vulnerable, but I trusted Brandi and allowed myself to enjoy it.

What surprised me most when I saw the photographs was that I saw a genuinely happy woman looking back at me. There were shadows of the woman I was before Tom died, but I saw even more of the woman I am becoming. There is a new strength there, one grounded deeply in faith and increasingly excited to watch the future unfold one day at a time.

The photographs that mean the most to me came at the end of the session. I wore jeans and one of Tom’s white starched dress shirts from his Wall Street days. On my wrist was the watch I gave him for our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple, and I wore the earrings that were the first gift he ever gave me when we were dating. Brandi also let me hold my rosary for some of those photographs.

There is one image from that series that feels more like me than any photograph I have seen in a very long time. It holds so much of my life in one frame: the man I loved, the marriage we shared, the faith that sustains me and the woman who is still here, still growing and still becoming.

I love all of the photographs, but I will always be especially grateful to Brandi for capturing that one.