Thoughts on Turning 60

I turned 60 this year. When my mom was 60 she went with my Dad to find out why he was coughing. They told them he had stage 3 Adenocarcinoma and had 18 months to live and they couldn’t help him. That was in 1998. What a shock. I try to imagine how I would handle similar news if it was Julie. Mom went into full “save Dad” mode. Doctors, medicines, prayers, and non-conventional therapies… staining Dad’s feet with some purple concoction. I don’t know who had it worse… mother or dad… probably mom.

I try to imagine if I was Dad and maybe I only have two years to live. What would I do with that knowledge? Julie tells me that I’m healthier than Dad and will live a long time. Maybe.

I was 44 years old when Dad died and it seems like yesterday. I thought mom was too old to remarry at 60 but I was 44… how silly. Dad’s younger grandchildren don’t remember him. I have two grand-daughters who are my life. I want them to remember me. I want them to cry their eyes out at my funeral. I want to go to Heaven but I really want to live and grow old with my wife and see my daughter marry and have children and be surrounded by kids and grandkids on holidays.

I pray every day on my knees and I pray that Pa’s girls will be protected and I thank God for my wife and my parents, my uncle and my aunts and my brothers and my cousins and for all of our children and I also pray for those who have passed on… family and friends.

God’s in control and I’m OK with that… I don’t have to understand it but I want to live circumspectly on this earth. I want to prepare myself. I want to feel and understand the pain of my parents so I’ll be better prepared when it’s my turn.