It Is Ironic At My Age To Consider

It is ironic at my age to consider dating again. I have tried and had little success. I think that I have a ton of baggage that I carry with me only to find someone who has even more than I. My children are grown now and all doing well and here am I sad and lonely. Twice married and twice divorced, my success rate stands on its' own merits.

The last twelve months of my life have been the toughest ever. Health issues arrive unexpectedly and unannounced. Diabetes called first along with its companion issues coronary artery and heart disease. It’s a wonderful trilogy for sure and a good indication that the real Trilogy (Father, Son and Holy Ghost) can only be waiting in the wings for me. I am not afraid of death but I do not like surprises either so you might say I have issues with the whole process. It is inevitable though. A wise old friend of mine, a man of tremendous faith used to say "One out of one dies". Truer words were never spoken.

The health issues along with the self induced motorcycle accident that destroyed my left ankle left me with a mountain of debt and discouraged to say the least. I love it when one of my caring friends or even the odd acquaintance chimes in with "Thank God you had a fracture, it could have been worse, you could have sprained it'. Drives me freaking nuts and raises my blood pressure by at least twenty points when someone says stupid shit like that. I have sprained both of my ankles a number of times playing sports and it was never this bad physically or financially. It is my best guess that they have suffered neither or they wouldn't even think of saying such a dumb ass thing. I love my friends dearly but sometimes (as Jackie Gleason used to say) bang, zoom, to the moon Alice is what I envision in my head when I hear those words.

I guess I am getting grumpy as I age. I try to maintain a positive attitude about things but sometimes it just isn't there. I have read enough self help books to get myself into trouble. I really have to rely on my faith when the going gets tough. I also have a mentor, he always tells me "Keep your head in the game, God will show up he always does". "Sometimes it's at 11:59 but He always shows up". I can't argue with that because I have seen it many times in my own life and in the lives of others.

I believe what I struggle with is the everyday grind of trying to live right. It's not a hard thing to do, it just requires the discipline of faith for me. Where I really struggle is when I try to live right, ask for guidance, strength, do the right thing and my life changes little in the physical sense. It really irks me to see some pecker wood come along who could care less about anything other than themselves and they live easy fat lives and rarely catch a bump or bruise along the way. I get angry with God at times when this happens because I don't understand I guess. Oh sure I know, have heard other people remind me that my real reward awaits me in heaven and that I believe. It's just that I am not sure that God is picking on me or maybe He has forgotten me. I am sure that sounds like self pity and it very well may be but it is my reality today.

I don't like feeling this way at all. Friends have told me "well don't feel that way". This thing is not like a light switch that I can just reach over and flick to the off position and be done with it. I wish it were that damn simple. If that were the case I would call the electrician and just have him remove the outlet and life would be all good. It is much more complicated than that. It is the weight of a lot of things that pile up on such an imperceptible level, one electron or one atom at a time that I hardly notice the weight until my legs start to buckle underneath me. That's the subtleness of it all. It's almost like the bridge that collapsed last year in Minnesota. It stands up day in, day out carrying the load uncomplaining and suddenly it crashes to the ground. The number of vehicles that day was not much higher or lower than the norm. The weather was not any different than what was expected or had been experienced before. It was a series of subtle, minute blows repeated time after time after time that caused the breakdown.

I have come to the conclusion that nobody really wants to die but we all become tired of living. The blows of lifetime add up, eventually we crack. Sure we can strengthen our resolve, suck it up, keep a stiff upper lip but the blows do take their toll. The blows can be something as subtle as stressful day at the office, an argument with a spouse or child or the hammering that the loss of a loved one brings. Tragedy can really test the limits of our structure and we survive but it weakens us on some level.

Nothing cracks me up more than when some dumb ass TV reporter interviews a family member after a trial and conviction (after they have suffered a tragic loss by accident or even murder) and they shove a microphone in their faces, ask them if they now have "closure". How stupid is that? Does one ever attain this Zen like state? I think not.

My younger sister lost her five year old son in a fire some twenty eight years ago, she has never had "closure". It's a nice psycho-babble term that certainly sounds pretty spiffy but really lacks substance. That is not to say that she has not gotten on with her life, she has. I am sure that there isn't a day that goes by that she doesn't wonder what type of young man he would be today, what he would be doing for a living and whether or not he would have made her a grandmother by now. I know this to be true based on my own experience. My mother passed away eight years ago at the age of eighty four. She had lived a long life, but it was a hard life. There is not a day that goes by when I don't think about something she used to say or how she used to look at me when I disappointed her or pleased her. She is an indelible part of my memory and will be until the day that I pass.

My mom was ready when her time came. She was tired of living she told me, although it was all she had ever known. She was tired of being ill, worried and fragile. She suffered from C.O.P.D. and emphysema her last few years. A couple packs of Pall Malls’ a day for forty or fifty years will do that for you if you insist. At the end she lived in a senior high rise apartment complex and she loved it. She had friends and even a couple of fella’s that kind of liked her a lot and she was comfortable. Towards the end the tops of her ears turned blue and she was constantly on the maximum amount of oxygen that one can use. She suffered from hallucinations and began seeing things that weren't there. She loved to tell us about them and God was kind because they weren't scary things for her to see. A few days before she passed I went to see her and she smiled as I walked into the room, "Oh Paul Newman is here" she said. That was not an unusual greeting from her to me. It was because of the pretty blue eyes that were just like hers that she had genetically passed on to me. She told me about how she was seeing things, mostly butterflies and giraffes that were walking across the wall and how pretty they were and how real they seemed even though she knew they were illusions. She kept her wicked sense of humor right up to the very end. She remarked how there were kids in the neighborhood who would pay big money to buy and take drugs so that they could she what she was seeing for free. I remember my mom with great fondness and love. It wasn't always that way for us but the last years of her life were a blessing to me and hopefully to her.

She always loved me no matter what. She may not have liked what I was doing at times but she always, unconditionally loved me along with my eight brothers and sisters. She was the best mom any boy could ask for.

It's times like these when things don't go my way, when I am frustrated with life that I think about her and what she really did for me. She loved me no matter what and her life was a lot tougher than mine. Married to a drunk with nine children and he runs in and out of her life all of the time. Drinking himself to death by the age of forty four and leaving her alone with the nine children, no money and little hope. Some how, some way, she saw fit to keep us together, make some tough decisions and have enough faith to put one foot in front of the other and trudge onward. Mom hung in there always believing that better times were coming and never ever giving up. It is times like these when I turn to her example of life and realize that I have little to complain about in mine. I realize when I do so, how embarrassed I should be when I whine and complain about a life that has been blessed with her, my own beautiful children and more good friends than the law allows. My apologies for the opening of this piece, it is certainly not the example that she set in place for me to follow.