Tomorrow I turn 57. It seems impossible.

Signs of aging have slowly been creeping into my life: more conversations about doctors' visits, an increased interest in retirement and the almost daily reading of the obituary page, where first I look at the ages of the deceased.

On a recent visit to Ohio, my sister and I visited our dad's gravesite. We love walking through our hometown cemetery, seeing the familiar names and recalling the forgotten circumstances of our youth.

There we came across the grave of Harold Strausser, who, in our youth, stood impatiently on the front porch of his home waiting for my brother to deliver the newspaper. And of Nellie McFarland, a distant cousin of my father, whose blaze of white hair was the only thing visible through the windows of her big car as she drove fast through the streets of our neighborhood.

And the tomb of Patrick Schlater, the stillborn son of my parents' friends, who died in 1953.

"His mother was never allowed to hold him after he was born," my sister blurted out instinctively, recalling the oft-repeated statement of our own mother, who, when Patrick's brief life was recalled, always expressed her dismay with those words.

We also saw the grave of Clayton Conover, M.D. Tall, thin, and slightly stoop shouldered, Dr. Conover delivered my sister and me and most of the Catholic babies born in Sidney, Ohio, in the 1950s. According to his tombstone, he died at age 61.

"He was still delivering babies when he died," my sister said reflexively, repeating the phrase we most often associate with him.

"No wonder," my sister added in amazement. "He was only 61."

Only 61. At the time of his death, when I was a young adult, Conover seemed old. And to my sister and me, his legacy is that of delivering babies up until the time of his death.

Concern for one's legacy —how we'll be remembered by the generations that follow — is another sign of aging.

On our visit to Ohio, my sister and I also visited my mother's 87-year-old husband, Elmer. In poor health, Elmer may be moving in with one of his own children soon. (My mother is living in a nursing home following a stroke several years ago.) Because of his impending move, Elmer is in the throes of disbursing his material possessions: household furnishings, photograph albums, even an old canoe.

But he is worrying most over what will happen to his music collection — 800-plus cassette tapes of songs that he began recording shortly before retiring from Wright Patterson Air Force Base more than 20 years ago.

"Every era has its good music," Elmer always says, and his collection reflects that thinking. It includes everything from swing to rock 'n' roll, with the title of each song and the recording artist carefully logged on the jacket of the cassette tape.

In his life, Elmer has been many things: a tall, gangly boy growing up near Richmond, Ind.; a student at Purdue University; a flight engineer with a bomb squadron during World War II; a professional engineer; a devoted husband; a father; and a collector of old songs.

When Elmer's life is recalled, how will he be remembered?

Aging brings with it a keener awareness of the limited time we have here on earth and a growing interest in what our legacy will be.

Linda K. Schmitmeyer is a freelance writer living in Middlesex Township. Her e-mail address is lks260@zoominternet.net.