Write a commentFive years ago, when I turned 65, I wrote a column about that milestone event. My conclusion then was that while my plane was still flying, the runway was getting shorter and shorter. What to do, what to do?
My daughter Danielle gave me some pretty good advice at the time, "Well, dad", she said, " you just have to figure out how to lengthen the runway!" Good advice. Somehow I have done just that, and I will be joining family and friends at the end of February in Florida for a celebration of my 70th birthday. I am a lucky man indeed. I hope to keep extending the pavement on that landing strip for many more years to come.
At a high school reunion for the OCHS class of '64 last summer in Fair Haven, much of our talk centered around health issues. Who has had a hip or knee replaced, and who didn't make it in order to celebrate, at all. I am particularly interested in the bionic aspects of knee replacement, as I plan to undergo the procedure myself in the Spring. The marvels of medical science have benefitted us all to the degree that we are now proclaiming that 70 is the new 50! There is some truth to that. I am almost older now than my parents were when they died, my dad at 68 and my mom at 70.
My college roommate Steve Epstein had a saying way back then that I have never forgotten. He had an emergency splenectomy during our freshman year. " If you have no time for your health today, you will have no health for your time tomorrow ". Wise words, those. We all try to eat healthier, exercise, lose weight, and perhaps most important of all, as my late wife Charlotte used to say, "Keep a happy heart!" Above all else, I think that is the key to a healthy outlook. Never give in to self-pity, and maintain a positive outlook on life in general. In short, be a happy camper and live your life on the sunny side of the street. And take plenty of anti-stress vitamins.
There will be tragedy and disappointment in life, and losing a loved one is the hardest thing of all to face. I know, because I've done it. You never fill that hole in your heart, but you learn, in time, to navigate around it.
There are times in life when we have to face our own mortality as well. That has happened to me twice.
Eighteen years ago, while my wife was battling terminal cancer, I was diagnosed with melanoma, a particularly virile form of skin cancer. Charlotte noticed a spot on my back while we were vacationing in sunny St. Croix, and urged me to have it looked at. I pooh-poohed her suggestion, but she persisted. Turns out, she was right. I had a melanoma, which was caught fortunately in it's early stages, and had an operation to remove it at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. They carved a "Z" flap in my back, and removed two lymph nodes under my arm, and in the end, I was cancer free, and have stayed that way ever since with regular check ups. Charlotte saved my life, literally, even though she could not save her own. For that, I am eternally grateful.
The second health challenge I faced was an emergency appendectomy eight years ago. I had bad stomach cramps on a Friday but put off going to the emergency room until Monday, when I already had a regularly scheduled doctor's appointment. When I went to the doctor that day he put me in the hospital "stat", and my appendix, which was about to burst, was successfully removed. I survived again, thankfully.
You never know when life is going to throw you a lemon, so it is always best to be ready to make lemonade. As I write this column, I am suffering from a very nasty chest cold, after traveling in California for two weeks, where it was very wet and windy. The cramped stuffy planes and the red eye three stop flights probably didn't help either. But, alas, I am home, and on the mend, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I will survive.
We all just need to learn to take life 's challenges as they come and live each day we are given to the fullest. Carpe diem! "Seize the day", as Robin William's character in the movie "Dead Poet's Society" advised us. To put it another way, my wife would often advise, by way of singing an old Doris Day song, " Que sera, sera. Whatever will be will be. The future's not ours to see. Que sera, sera. What will be will be". So my parting words of advice to my fellow boomers out there is to hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and all the time, keep whistling a happy tune. Que sera, sera.
