According to the median age of death in the United States, I’m now a little more than middle-aged. I’m ambivalent about this, I don’t feel old at all, but the thought of living another 45 years makes me feel pretty old. I’m not sure I’m interested in digging in for almost another half-century of working and paying taxes. My dear Grandmother had quadruple bypass surgery when she was sixty-seven. When I told her she’d extended her life expectancy by thirty years, she said, “Well I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known that. Who wants to live forever?”
Gran isn’t depressed, and she doesn’t have a death wish. She’s just ready to rest some. She has three successful children and a bevy of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She taught us well, she did her job and she doesn’t want to be bothered anymore. She misses her Mother, and she wants to see her friends who have passed on. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that at all.
Our daughter passed her nursing exam this week. We have successfully gotten one child through college and licensed in a profession that she will never lack for work in. We have our 15-year-old son to drag through acting like a human for the next few years, but I think we’ll get him to stand upright and go off to college before I’m too terribly old. With our one parental win under the belt, a lot of the pressure we had when we were younger is gone, so another 45 years might not be so bad. I’m slightly concerned about successfully feeding a hulking six-foot monster who eats a box of cereal for breakfast every day without going broke, but we’ve got one down and one to go. I’ll take it.
