My 54th year on Earth
I’ve never been 54 years old before today, but I don’t think I like it. I feel young, vibrant, alive and healthy but know with age comes aching bones, digestive issues, cranky grandparent-syndrome and forgetfulness. This must be true, I see the advertisements on television.
Thankfully, numerous medicines relieve these symptoms. The struggle are the side effects — depression, an enlarged heart, lack of focus, hatred for the people who I love and oily anal discharge are listed by the, “non-medical professional announcer,” as side-effects of drugs I might consider in the future for what might ail me. I Google WebMD asking the life expectancy of a healthy 54-year-old and receive the tragic headline, “Is Life Expectancy Overestimated?”
Knowing I shouldn’t and expecting the horrible outcome, I tempt fate and click on the column highlighted and get the results expected — crud; I’m going to die!
The column quotes, “We may not live as long as we think. And this time, it has nothing to do with obesity, smoking, or the other usual life-threatening culprits. It has to do with the way the life expectancy calculations are made, suggests a new study. ‘We should subtract two years from the U.S. life expectancy estimate,’ says researcher John Bongaarts, Ph.D., of the Population Council in New York. ‘It’s not that we’re not living longer. We’re just not living as long as we think.’”
Well that’s a fine, how do you do. I’m going to die two years earlier than anticipated because of a clerical error. Both of my parents died before their 72nd birthday, so now I calculate my death at 70 years old. Wow, only another 16 years on this Earth. But wait, both of my parents smoked cigarettes, which steals 8-11 years from one’s life so, I can now expect to live to around 80 years old. I smoked one cigarette my whole life and hated it. Awesome.
Now wait again, I just Googled the effect of being overweight on one’s life span and I get another eight years to live past both my parents who carry extra weight in their bellies most of their lives. So, my life expectancy is 88 years old. I can live with that; 34 more years to celebrate life, to play with grandchildren, to explore the world and give back to the planet what it gave to me — to make a difference.
My entire life I have been petrified of dying. As a young child, I know a nuclear bomb is going to explode in my hometown. I constantly expect to be vaporized, attempting to shelter myself by hiding underneath my school desk holding my head in my hands and remaining, “100 percent quite,” as my principal falsely states calmly over the intercom, “we are under attack by the Russians.”
A few years later, my uncles are ordered to Vietnam. Some return, some don’t. A few years too young to be drafted, I pray every night, “Please God, let me live. Don’t send me to war. I have great things to do before I die.”
Many years after that, I join the Air Force and in 1990, the United States is at war again. I volunteer to fight on the frontline of Desert Storm and pray each night, “Please God, let me live, I have great things to do before I die.” I remain stateside and don’t see action.
Today, at the age of 54, I wonder, have I done great things that honor my prior prayers. In deep contemplation, I believe, I have not. I still owe God great things.
On this day of my 54th year on this Earth, I have more to offer than I’ve given presently. Today I offer to give more of myself that I ask others to give to me. I offer to listen when one needs a compassionate ear and to speak when one needs an advocate. I offer to be kind, emotionally present and physically stable. I wish to be an existentialist. To have my work on this Earth continue past my death.
In reflection I challenge, might life be most rewarding if one focuses on how to give back to the world which offers her or him life, than focusing on how to get from the world what one might, to make one’s life rewarding? Giving offers more rewarding than taking. Today I search to make my world better; for my child, my grandchildren and my future progeny.
Today I work to be the best I can be by offering the knowledge and wisdom this 54-year-old man has learned in his time on Earth. My purpose is to leave more than I take, to offer the best of me to support the best in the people I love and to listen more than I speak. Hopefully, I have 34 years to reach this goal.
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Send comments or other suggestions to William Rutherford at [email protected] or visit pensiveparenting.com.