We're all going to die! No getting around it. Death is inescapable. We like to think that only the sick, the weak and the old die. It just isn't true. Allegedly healthy people just drop dead all the time. Conversely exists my father's mother, who smoked Pall Malls without filters, drank gin quite regularly and her motto regarding fat was, "If you can fry it eat it!" ? Just as a point of information, she will be 97 this year. Now, I am not advocating what is now considered bad behavior. You know smoking, drinking and eating good food. I would, however, like to suggest that perhaps we don't know as much about what it takes not to die as we think we do. To be fair, you can't really take my grandmother as a reasonable example. She didn't start having children until she was 33 years old and she carried 7 children at approximately 14 month intervals and she did it the old fashion way. Modern medicine frequently reminds women that when you're in your mid-thirties your chances of bearing reasonably normal children falls under the category of rapidly diminishing returns. Perhaps she's an exception. My mother's father was a hard living man. When I sit at his knee while he tells stories of his fantastic youth, World War II and his life when he raced boats, I am often reminded of Ernest Hemingway. He smoked cigars and drank a stiff gin martini each night when he returned home from his 14-hour day at his business. I admit he is just a youngster at 88. I know I am just piling on now but I had the distinct pleasure of knowing my great grandparents. The first hand accounts of the 19th Century are precious in my memory here in the 21st. What I can tell you about all of them is that they were and are all old. Let me remind you that the alternative to old is dead. For my grandparents, most of the people that they have known in their lives are dead. For all the technology of the new age, my father's mother has outlived two of her children. My mother's parents have outlived their daughter. My maternal, maternal great grand parents survived 3 of their 12 children. My paternal, maternal great grandmother survived 4 of her 13 children. What they all have in common is that they did not live easy lives. They all have practical and accepting ways of viewing the world. In short, (I know it's a little late for that) perhaps we are more than organic machinery. Perhaps, we are more complex than the sum of what we put in and out of our bodies. In my family's lines, they have known death intimately and didn't turn away. They chose to focus on living life and left cheating death to someone else. |
