Friday was my birthday. I am 69 years old. I am now 16 years older than my father was when he died, but still more than 20 years younger than my mother was when she died last year. I am nearly twice as old as my oldest child.
I have reached the age where icons of my childhood--TV and movie stars, authors, politicians--are dying nearly every week. That's actually not surprising, as most of them are about the same age as my parents would be. More disturbing, perhaps, are the reported deaths of those I thought of as my contemporaries, people who are within a decade either way of my own age. I'm not talking here of the unfortunate ones who die from their misuse of drugs or alcohol, but from "natural causes," the same things that might well lead to my demise at some time. These are all reminders of my mortality.
I am not in fear of either old age or death, actually. I expect that, like my mother, I have another two decades in me, decades I will live to their fullest, as she did. On the other hand, I am less than a year from accomplishing the Biblical "three-full-score and ten".
