The Poppi Chronicles

I always thought that I would know that I was getting old when parts of my body started to break.  My body, I thought, would send me loud and clear signals when it was time to start living in the moment rather than planning for an unending string of tomorrows.  Well, parts of my body have been “breaking” for several years now but somehow the message that I was aging didn’t get through to me.  It should have, but it didn’t.  My knees stopped working the way knees are supposed to work at least five years ago making it nearly impossible for me to walk up and down stairs.  My hearing is going and I am constantly asking my wife to repeat things.  So is my eyesight – a little bit at a time, but I know that I don’t see as well as I did say three years ago.  My back has deteriorated to the point that I can’t stand for long periods at a time, and the idea of walking long or even moderately short distances is totally out of the question.

 You would think that all of that would have convinced me that I was moving very deliberately along the timeline of life – but it didn’t.  None of my “breaking” body parts shook my unwavering belief in my own immortality.  I remained convinced that my deteriorating body could be repaired, indefinitely and that I could truly live forever, if that was what I wanted to do.

Then it happened.  A few months ago the bodies of my friends started to break!  A long time friend fell and he developed bleeding in his brain.  When they operated to stop the bleeding, he suffered a stroke.  He survived but it changed him.  Then another friend announced that she had breast cancer – stage “bad” – and she is still fighting the good fight.  My doctor, who is several years my junior, suffered a stroke.  He is back to near normal thanks to the fact that he just happened to suffer his stroke near a Stroke Treatment Center and he was given the clot buster TPA within 52 minutes of the onset of his stroke.  This past weekend yet another dear friend announced that she too had breast cancer and was about to undergo treatment.  The list goes on.  One after another my friends, my contemporaries are falling apart.

And I suddenly feel old – very old and extremely mortal.

“So much to do – so little time.” Cecil Rhodes