Young at Heart

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Last fall, I started writing two blogs in addition to this one. It seemed to me that there were too many topics I wanted to write about, and I figured two additional blogs would help me to be more organized in my thoughts.

It's worked for me, too. But there are still times when the topics I want to write about overlap. This is one of those times.

I guess, in part, it's due to the Easter season, with its emphasis on life and death and resurrection. How can one not think of death when the crucifixion is such a prominent part of the season?

And, as I mentioned yesterday, Easter was the last time I saw my mother. She was her vibrant, healthy self when I saw her, robust at the age of 63, but a flash flood took her life in May 1995. It has been inevitable, I suppose, that I have thought of her on every Easter since then.

And, in the days leading up to Easter, Americans were shaken by the highly publicized deaths of two young people — a rookie pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels, who died in a car crash at the age of 22, and an 8–year–old girl, who was murdered and then was stuffed in a suitcase that was submerged in a pond.

And, here in Dallas, it seems we're always hearing reports of young people who have died. Case in point — 16–year–old Kimberly Martinez, a sophomore at W.T. White High School, died in a car crash early Sunday. Her boyfriend and his brother–in–law picked her up at a party, and their vehicle struck a utility pole. Speed and alcohol appear to have played a role.

The unspoken assumption is always that one will live to a ripe old age, but that is not the case for everyone. We manage to put that unpleasant thought out of our heads until we are confronted with another example of how brutally unfair life can be.

Sometimes life can put us in a funk. I've been thinking today of an episode of "Frasier" that seems appropriate, and I've posted a clip from it with this post. That's where the overlap in this comes in. Typically, I would post something like that on my entertainment blog, but it seems to me that "Frasier" often strikes just the right note and transcends my feeble attempts to categorize things.

Maybe that is because Frasier is a psychiatrist. True, he's somewhat self–absorbed and his stories are entertaining, but he often manages to come up with the answers to the questions we all face. In the clip I've attached to this post, Eddie the dog was despondent and, in an attempt to discover the reason and restore him to his perky self, a dog psychiatrist was brought in.

Frasier and his brother, both of whom are psychiatrists, resisted the idea. They believed that an animal psychiatrist is a quack.

The episode examined some other points about the relationships between people and their pets, often in a humorous way. I've always enjoyed the part of the episode where the dog psychiatrist asks the members of the family what Eddie would do as a human. He wanted to know what Eddie the human would serve at a dinner party — Martin thought he would serve meatloaf and Daphne speculated it would be poached salmon, but skeptical Niles insisted those entrées "might be underdone" because Eddie couldn't reach the knobs on the oven. When the psychiatrist wanted to know what Eddie the human's first words would be, cynical Frasier suggested, "Give me a breath mint!"

Then, when the dog psychiatrist wanted to know what kind of cologne Eddie the human would wear, Martin figured it would be Aqua Velva, but Frasier said it would be "toilet water." Niles chimed in, "Same answer for 'favorite beverage!' "

The story also gave the characters a chance to explore the debate one often hears between dog owners and others, in which dog owners insist that dogs understand what is said to them. Watch this clip. It's short, but it manages to pack a lot into a brief visual moment.

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How easily the conflicts in life can be resolved, though. As it turned out, Eddie's problem was that his favorite toy was buried beyond his reach under sofa cushions, prompting Frasier to advise his caller to "take a tip from our dog friends and treat yourself to your favorite toy."

Or, perhaps the words from a Frank Sinatra song express it just as well:

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"Don't you know that it's worth
Every treasure on earth
To be young at heart
For as rich as you are
It's much better by far
To be young at heart
And if you should survive to 105
Look at all you'll derive
Out of being alive."

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Whatever your age may be, it's good advice to be young at heart.

I don't mean to be blasé about this, but the Grim Reaper will come whenever he chooses. There's nothing to be gained from hastening his arrival.

In the meantime, treat yourself to your favorite toy.

Peering Into the Future

Maybe I'm overly sensitive to it.

Lately, I've thought a lot about death. I guess that's normal as we get older. (Actually, I am older today. It's my 49th birthday.)

But it does seem to me there have been a lot of deaths that have had an impact on me personally this year — more than usual.

The year began with the death of my stepmother's mother — who was, it should be said, in her 90s. It's fair to say her death had been expected in my family for at least a few years.

As the year has progressed, I've seen the deaths of: a close friend's sister-in-law; two old friends of the family; two of my high school classmates; a schoolmate who was a year ahead of me; another schoolmate who was a year behind me, and a former teacher.

Those are the deaths I'm aware of. There are so many other people I've known in my life and lost touch with over the years — former classmates, co-workers, neighbors — who may have passed away this year and I knew nothing about it.

And, as always, I've been touched by the passing of prominent people who were important in my life — especially the ones who made me laugh, like George Carlin and Harvey Korman.

These days, whenever someone I know dies, my first question is, "What was the cause of death?" Frustratingly, I don't always get an answer.

So it's not necessarily comforting to read David Kenner's statement in Financial Times that "Everyone dies. The question is when and how."

The "how" part, the logical mind tells us, might yield some clues that could be beneficial in the long run — like those warnings on cigarette packages about the hazards of smoking.

But such an assumption is based on faulty reasoning. It depends upon acceptance of a false cause-and-effect relationship. If, for example, you hear of a friend who died in a car accident, what are you supposed to do with that information? Stop operating — or even riding in — cars?

Kenner, to his credit, tries to give everyone a head's-up by identifying "three causes of death that will grow dramatically more likely, and three that might be on the way out" in the next 20 years.

He uses, as his primary source material, the World Health Organization's Global Burden of Disease: 2004 Update, which suggests to him that the following causes of death are likely to go up between now and 2030:

1. Heart disease


2. Lung disease


3. Traffic accidents

Kenner says these causes of death are likely to drop between now and 2030:

1. HIV/AIDS


2. Tuberculosis


3. Diarrheal disease

Kenner outlines his statistical reasoning for each selection, which is interesting but it all serves to underline the point that we will all die someday.

And the fact that one may die of AIDS, not heart disease, will be of scant consolation to that person's survivors. Fewer people may be dying of a specific cause, but there will still be people dying from it.

It's good news when medical science conquers a disease that has been killing people. But the bad news — the constant news — is that disease itself will not be conquered.

The best proof I can offer of that is the flip side of Kenner's conclusion that HIV/AIDS deaths will be on the decline in 20 years. HIV/AIDS was the #6 cause of death in 2004, but, Kenner writes, "Researchers at the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS now think that in some parts of the world, notably in Africa, the epidemic has plateaued and might be starting to decline."

That's good news, right? Thirty years ago, when I was about to graduate from high school, AIDS wasn't even on the medical radar. It was first recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1981; the cause (HIV) wasn't identified until the mid-1980s.

Prejudice and politics restricted research funding for many years and slowed human progress in fighting AIDS — perhaps causing needless suffering and premature death — but the fact remains that cancer still hasn't been eradicated, heart disease still isn't preventable and new diseases emerge all the time.

At best, one can be prepared for death. One cannot avoid it.

We can only encourage ourselves and others to make the most of the time we have.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Late last month, unnoticed by most of the world because it was reported at the same time as actor Paul Newman’s death, a 110-year-old woman named Alexina Calvert passed away.

Calvert was the oldest living person in Scotland — a title which, obviously, has now been passed along to someone else.

But, while a 110-year lifespan is quite an achievement, she did not live longer than everyone whose dates of birth and death can be documented. A French woman who died in 1997 holds that distinction, having lived more than 122 years.

The news of Calvert’s death caught my attention because she was born around the time my maternal grandmother was — Calvert was born in 1898, my grandmother was born in 1897.

I saw a picture of Calvert that was almost eerie in its resemblance to my grandmother.

And I saw other parallels between Calvert and my grandmother. Calvert’s husband died in 1973; my grandfather died in 1969. Neither Calvert nor my grandmother remarried.

My grandmother lived a long life — although, when compared to Calvert’s life, it doesn’t seem as long as it was. My grandmother was 91 when she died of Alzheimer’s disease.

Like anyone who lives to be more than 100 years old, Calvert frequently was asked the secret of her longevity.

"I never thought I would live as long but I have been lucky," she said last year. "I’ve had quite good health and I don’t drink."

Not drinking isn’t the secret for everyone, of course. I’ve heard other people who claimed that the secret of their longevity was a glass of wine or a bottle of beer with every evening meal.

And I’ve even heard occasional tales of centenarians who claimed that smoking actually helped them live longer. I’m sure they (and George Burns) were the exceptions to the rule.

But I suppose it’s really the luck of the draw.

My mother, for example, neither smoked nor drank (at least to excess — she did enjoy an occasional glass of wine) and she walked a couple of miles daily for exercise, but she lost her life when she was 63. She was caught in a flash flood and drowned.

That's a reminder, I guess, that even if someone seems to do all the right things, fate can still intervene and deprive that person of a lengthy life.

One need look no further than John F. Kennedy Jr. for evidence of that.

I don't know if he had any addictions, like smoking or drinking too much. He was born the year after I was, and, until I was nearly 40, it seemed "John-John" was "The One" America was waiting for.

Wealthy, handsome, well educated and articulate, he was the crown prince and the rest of us were merely waiting for him to reach the age that would be appropriate to reclaim the throne.

But in July 1999, after the private plane he was piloting crashed and killed him at the age of 38, along with his wife and his sister-in-law, his Uncle Ted observed that "like his father, he had every gift but length of years."

I grew up in a town that was about 300 miles from my grandmothers' homes, and I only saw them at holidays (like Thanksgiving and Christmas) and during the summers. My father's mother died in a rest home when I was 16. My maternal grandmother also died in a rest home, but I was nearly 30 when she died.

As a child, I was always a bit jealous of my friends whose grandparents lived nearby. It always seemed to me that they had a closeness with their grandparents that I didn't have.

Aunt Bess filled that void in my life.

When I was a teenager, I was in the habit of visiting a lady known in the community as "Aunt Bess" after school for about an hour on Wednesday afternoons.

I got to know her around the time I got my driver’s license. My house was a few miles beyond the outskirts of the town, and Aunt Bess lived along my route home from school. So it was easy to stop by and see her.

Her son was a local celebrity — he had gone to California and had become the host of a nationally televised morning game show that was on the air for a few years.

He brought his family to my town for visits from time to time. One summer, when I was about 15, my family became acquainted with Aunt Bess and her family during one of those visits.

Initially, I became friends with Aunt Bess’ grandson, Joe. After Aunt Bess' family had returned to the coast, my parents gave me permission to fly to California to visit Joe for a week.

What a week that was! Joe borrowed his father’s car for our use, and we went cruising along the Pacific coast several times (including more than a few stops along California's beaches, mainly to do some girl watching). We visited Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm, and one day we went to the TV studio to watch his father tape a week’s worth of game shows.

It was after I returned from that trip that I really got to know Aunt Bess and we started our regular Wednesday routine.

We talked about everything when I came over to her house on those afternoons. We began by sitting down with something to drink — usually a glass of iced tea or Coca-Cola. If Aunt Bess had something to nibble on — like cookies or cake or perhaps an apple — we would share a late afternoon snack.

I would tell her about things we were studying in school, and she would tell me about her friends at church. We talked about current events — and, during football season, we talked about the Razorbacks.

I don’t recall why we picked Wednesday to be the day I paid my weekly visit. Wednesday evenings usually were busy for Aunt Bess. Devoutly religious, she attended her Baptist church services every Wednesday night. She also taught Sunday school for many, many years.

I guess it goes without saying that her devotion to her faith was almost legendary in the church congregation. In fact, it is my understanding that, after she died, the church named a meeting room in her memory.

The time limitation provided a structure for our get-togethers, though. School adjourned at 3:30, and we knew we had to finish our visit by about 5 o’clock to give Aunt Bess enough time to dress for church.

So I often planned ahead of time the things I wanted to talk about. Because of that, Aunt Bess used to tease me, telling me I was "methodical."

Like my real grandmothers, Aunt Bess is no longer with us. As a matter of fact, she died 20 years ago today.

We sort of lost touch in the last years of her life. I don't know if she developed a terminal illness, like my grandmothers, and had to move to a rest home or into her son's home, or if she just died unexpectedly.

It's one of those things I don't know, one of those things I will never know.

I can only hope.

I never told her (in so many words) what an influence she was on my life. I can only hope she knew anyway.

I hope I learned all the life lessons Aunt Bess wanted to teach me.

And I hope she rests in peace.

Life — or Something Like It

This has been a very unusual week for me.

If you read my blog on a somewhat regular basis, you’ve probably read my entries about my 30th anniversary high school reunion, which was held in my hometown in central Arkansas last weekend. You also know I wasn’t able to attend the reunion.

But I feel as if I have attended — in a way. One of my classmates e-mailed a class web address to me, and another classmate e-mailed the contact list that was compiled at the reunion itself.

From the information I’ve picked up from those two sources, I’ve been able to send e-mails to several of my classmates, and I’ve heard back from some of them already.

I’m getting caught up on the news from some long lost friends — how many children they have, which ones are grandparents now, etc. It would have been great to see them (maybe someone will post some pictures!), but communicating with them really is the next best thing to being there, I guess.

Some of them have done me the honor of visiting this blog and reading what I’ve been writing lately. I guess they remember things I wrote for the high school newspaper — when I was young and wordy!

Well, I've got a news flash — I'm not young anymore! (But I can still be wordy at times.)

Anyway, I hope they enjoy what they read here. And I look forward to their input.

I haven’t seen many of my classmates since the fifth anniversary reunion in 1983. Obviously, a lot has happened in 25 years. For me, it’s almost as if it’s all happening now.

It’s kind of a strange sensation.

For example, I heard from one of my classmates who married another one of my classmates. They became parents for the first time 25 years ago. Offhand, I don’t remember if their baby had already been born or if they were still expecting him when I saw them in 1983 — but, in the years that have passed, they added three daughters to their family tree. Four children in all.

I just found out about all that this week — to me, it seems like their little family exploded overnight. But, like everything else, it was a product of time. I just wasn’t there to see it all happen.

Three of their children are in their 20s now — old enough to have graduated from the same high school their parents and I attended three decades ago — and my friends have one grandson.

I e-mailed a picture of my goddaughter to another old friend, and my friend e-mailed a photo of her three daughters to me. I remarked that one of her daughters bears a striking resemblance to her when she was a teenager.

Life’s rich pageant has been coming to me through my e-mail’s inbox this week.

I also learned this week that the mother of two of my classmates (who were my closest playmates in elementary school) passed away last year.

I don’t know much more than that. I don’t know if she had been ill prior to her death or if it was one of those things that happened suddenly. Judging from what I assume was her age when her sons and I were children, I guess she was in her late 70s.

But, in my mind’s eye, she’ll always be who she was when I was 7 or 8 years old and I had dinner at their house or spent the night. For however long I was in the house, she was my surrogate mother.

She was always very nice to me — she treated me like one of the family, and she expected me to follow the rules. I expected no less.

And, until this week, she was still alive in my mind’s eye — even though, in reality, she’s been gone for more than a year.

In a more immediate sense, I learned that an old friend of the family died this afternoon.

I don’t know what his cause of death was, but he was in his 80s and he had polio when he was a child so I suppose, under those circumstances, even something that might be handled routinely by a younger, healthy person could be too much for an older, compromised immune system.

But I’ve known this man all my life. In fact, there wasn’t a time when I didn’t know him. He and his wife were friends of my mother, originally, and they were there for our family in our darkest days. I’ll always be grateful for that, but I didn’t see much of him in the last year of his life. I think the last time I saw him was at Christmas.

But I will be attending his funeral on Monday.

Life marches on.

The Meaning of Life

Recently, I read that J.K. Rowling, the hugely successful British author of the Harry Potter series of books, has been ranked as the 1,062nd wealthiest person in the world by Forbes.

I suppose, if you followed that list to its logical conclusion, I would rank somewhere around # 4 billion.

That's just a guess. I know I'm doing better than the millions of people in Third World countries who have to choke down powdered milk from relief agencies in order to survive (or, as my 78-year-old father likes to say, to "keep body and soul together"), but I'm hardly Donald Trump, if you know what I mean.

Of course, no one can compile a list that is that extensive. And it's probably just as well. Would you want to be able to look at such a list and discover that your neighbor -- or, worse, the idiot you knew in high school -- earns more than you do?

I heard once that income is a terrible way to keep score.

I guess that's true. There are more important things that give value to your life -- even if it's harder to think of them in recessionary times!

If you're married, having (and being) a good spouse adds value to your life. If you have children, being a good parent adds value to your life.

If you have a good family -- if one or both of your parents are still living and if you have loving siblings -- that adds value to your life. It's a value that can't be measured, and you won't have it forever. So be grateful for it while you have it.

If you have good friends, that adds value to your life. And I feel my friends are about the best there is. I've been through some rough times in my life, and my friends have been there for me. I'm grateful for that. I hope I'm as good a friend to them as they've been to me.

Doing something for a living that you enjoy doing adds value to your life. It can be more valuable than doing something you hate simply because it pays better. Or pays at all.

A job can be seen as a means to an end -- but it doesn't have to be. Does it?

Good books, good music, good films. The arts bring beauty to your life and add value to it.

Your dreams add value to your life, but, contrary to what may be the prevailing belief, dreams don't always come true.

I once dreamed of writing best-selling books, like Rowling does. Maybe that will happen one day, but, as I've gotten closer to my 50th birthday, I've had to accept the probability that it isn't going to happen.

And that's OK. I don't have to move past her in Forbes' rankings -- to #1,061 -- to validate my life.

I don't need to leave something behind that tells future generations that I was here.

I was here. That's legacy enough for me.

On second thought, though, Grandma Moses was in her 70s when she started her painting career ...