At work I was asked to submit 500 words on my perspective on getting old. These submissions are to be posted on a new website getold.com to be launched at the end of June (I'm a little unclear on the details). I figured it was right up the dumbdumbdaddyo alley so this is was I sent:
The death of one who is young is a tragedy and for me this is proof enough that life is worth living. My big sister died when she was sixteen from leukemia. As children it is easy to believe that time is abundant and life is long. Death of a loved one, especially a child, teaches a hard and invaluable lesson that our time here on earth is precious and we don’t always know when the ride will end.
My parents faced many challenges raising their kids. With me, their youngest, allergies and asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia, broken bones and stitches, dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, bad teeth and every other childhood sickness that you can get seemed to come my way. With patients, love, and concern my mother and father taught me how to listen to the doctors and value their expertise. Most importantly they taught me how to take responsibility for myself and that it was up to me to find a way back to good health and live on.
As a young man I lived reckless and wild. If life was a ride, mine was a roller coaster and I was sitting in the front seat with my hands in the air. Good health for me was never easy. I collect chronic medical conditions like some people collect souvenirs and with that being the case I never expected to live very long. I took incredible risks like surfing in a hurricane and skiing off cliffs.
This all changed when I was blessed with the opportunity to start my own family. As a parent I have gained a great appreciation for what my parents went through raising me and my siblings. The greatest lessons I learned from them, however, came as a witness to my dad’s battle with old age. He would always say getting old isn’t easy, but it beats the alternative! When I was in college he had his first heart attack. Later he suffered a severe stroke and then rehabilitated himself back into his career. He had hip replacements and multiple complications from diabetes, but was able to walk down the aisle at my brother’s wedding. He had another massive stroke and quadruple bypass surgery. Again through rehabilitation was able to serve as my best man and gave the best toast a groom could ever hope for. He suffered amputations and transient ischemic attacks, but was there to meet my first child and his seventh grandchild.
My father died on a Monday and my second daughter was born that Friday. I flew a red eye to make his funeral the next day and another to make it back to bring my wife and new baby home from the hospital. On the flight home after four sleepless days I had a dream where my father told me that getting old is easy when you have something to live for, thank you!
You can read about a younger him at dumbdumbdaddyo.blogspot.com!
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