This meditative essay by a writer and professor reflects on the milestone of reaching 50 years of age. The author relates his own experiences and those of his elder literary friends and colleagues who have felt comparable anxieties and coped with similar challenges toward aging and death. He records their own milestones on life’s journey as well as their insightful and often quite hopeful, if not always cheery, responses. Several of them, like the author, admit that turning 50 has entailed for them a coming to terms with the impossibility of realizing some immortality projects.