And Life Continues

As many of you might remember, one of my best friends, Robert, died last October.  Late on December 23, I learned that another long-time, close friend, Carl, died earlier that day.  We had met in 1990 at the bank where we both worked.  We bonded over such mundane things as rock music and being Texas natives.

Last month I was equally startled to find out another longtime friend, Randy, had died following a freak accident at home; he fell down some stairs and never regained consciousness.  He passed away just days before his birthday.  We had met through a local Toastmasters group in 2001.  A veteran of the U.S. Post Office, Randy had finally retired a few years ago.

Thus, since October, I’ve lost three friends – and my already small social circle has decreased even further.  Damn!

As my parents often said, it’s hell getting old!  And here’s another adage: aging isn’t for wimps!

But, as I’ve discussed with a few friends over the past couple of years, I’m at that age where I lose relatives and friends to death and not because I owe them money.  It’s part of life.

In the late 1990s I saw a program on TV about people pushing the centenarian point in their lives and what their longevity secrets were.  None seemed to possess any mystical key to putting mileage on their personal odometers, but they all had one unique attribute that can’t be measured in facts and statistics.  They were able to accept the death of loved ones with few questions.  It hurt, of course – but they understood such things happen.  Our present realm is often brutal and cold.  People die.

But people certainly live.  And we can’t truly live if we break down every time someone we know and love leaves permanently.

Last year I came across an online editorial that noted millennials are referring to the 1980s and 90s as the “late 1900s”.  Well…they are!  And, as I told a close friend, I’m glad I lived through them!  So did he – who will be 60 next month.

I told that same friend, as well as a few others, that I’m happier now than I have been in years.  I have the same feeling that I did around the turn of the century, when the world seemed wide open and the future belonged to everyone with dreams.

For the most part, it still does.