Staring Down the Grim Reaper

Ever since I turned 70, which was four years ago, I have been attending a lot of “Celebrations of Life.” They always include many of my living friends and one dead one.

We gather and share memories of the person we are celebrating. Sometimes we cry, but most of the time we wish we knew the person better—had spent more time with them, visited them when they were sick, reached out and created friend time while they were alive.

I always feel very guilty at these events because I realize I could have done better while they were alive to let them know how much I would miss them when they left.

I have promised myself I will make a point to engage more of my friends in my daily living so if and when I die, they attend “my celebration” and if they die, I do not feel guilty for not being there for them.

Some of my friends have died young. By young I mean in their 70s and early 80s. I consider anything under 85 years old to be young as measured by my current standards.

I know 85-year-old folks who still ski the toughest terrain, climb mammoth mountains, run marathons and win senior triathlons. They travel to far-reaching parts of the world with bad water and dubious lawfulness.

Some of these older folks have taken up jumping into freezing lake and stream water in the middle of winter—in Vermont we call it chilly dipping and it is all the rage.

We are all trying to outrun the grim reaper. I think often nowadays about my own mortality. No amount of yoga, pilates, cardiovascular training, healthy eating, drinking and sleeping habits is going to negate the reality that the end of my life could happen at any time.

Humans do not think about their mortality when they are 50, unless they have a serious illness. But when our seventh decade rolls around, we watch those 70 flaming candles melting all over our gluten-free, low-sugar, dairy-free birthday cake that will certainly agitate our GERD for the next two weeks.

Look, I know I am heading toward the end of my life, and I am good with that. What is the heavy lift is watching so many people who were part of my life leave before me.

There are, then, some upsides to dying while many of your friends are still alive. The big one is that you have a lot of people attend your Celebration of Life. The downside is that you miss all the Celebrations of Life where you get to honor those who meant something to you.

It is a mixed bag.

We cannot choose when we are going to let the grim reaper grab us by the throat and growl “your time is up.” What we can do is reach out to people while they are still living and let them know how much they mean to us.

If we don’t, we will surely regret that we could have done more.

They say our lives are measured not by who we are, how much success we had or by the size of our wallet, but by the love from those whose lives we touched.

So, let me stop now and go make a few phone calls and talk to some old friends I have not chatted with in a while.