MY DEATH

There comes a time, as you get older, when you start to measure your life, not from the beginning, but from the end.

You stop thinking of how many years you've lived, in my case 72. You try to figure how many years you have left and what you can do with them.

The standard formula is to split the difference between your parents' life spans. My father died at 72, the age I am now, of a heart attack, and my mother at 85.

My father ate heart attack food every day of his life. You know, bacon and eggs or ham and eggs for breakfast every day. Hamburger or ham or some other kind of meat for lunch. And steak or roast for dinner, along with potatoes and a few vegetables. He didn't get the kind of aerobic exercise we get now. He played golf once a week and volleyball one night a week. He was a big, barrel-chested man, at 5-11 and 185. My mother died when she was 85, and she smoked all her life and ate crappy food and didn't exercise much either.

So I figure I might have 10 more years, or 15. Maybe 20, if I'm lucky. Or 30, if I'm unlucky. Life after 100 doesn't sound like much fun.

As you get older, time goes faster and faster. I've lived in this place 12 years, but it seems like three or four. So I know the time is going to go fast. The grandkids are growing up, and my son is middle-aged, amazingly enough. I'll probably be a great-grandpa soon enough.

The question is, am I going to look forward or look back? Am I going to live my life or my death?

I've got unfinished novels and other books to write, about 10 projects that I'd like to finish. If I only have two years, or three, how much can I get done? What difference does it make if I do them or not? Who does it matter to? Mostly to me, I guess.

None of my works have achieved much in the way of fame or money. I've published poetry and short fiction 20-some times in literary magazines, and I was a journalist for years, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize once, in 1967. Didn't win. But I did win the Random House short fiction contest in 1999. (Link:)
http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/contest/0999/sstory1.html

None of my big novels has been published. So far. There is always hope. So I don't know if I'll leave behind an impressive body of work, something I wanted to do when I was young.

Anyway, I have decided not to worry about how many years I have left. I've decided to live my life, as if I had plenty of time, and to look forward to each day and make the most of it.

It's the positive choice. Otherwise, you are just waiting to die, which means you are already dead.

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle