Friday, May 13, 2016

Growing Older



I’m getting old!

No surprise, I guess. I look in the mirror and wonder, ‘Where did my hair grow?’ My wife reminds me that it grows everywhere except the top of my head. God’s irony, His little joke, I suppose. His, and my wife’s, sense of humor.

One of the Sackett movies, maybe The Quick And The Dead, but I can’t remember which one, had a scene where a young buck tried to pick a fight with an older grisly-looking cowboy while the old guy tried to eat his dinner. The old guy didn’t say anything. Didn’t even look at the young buck. He kept eating his steak and drinking his beer. The old guy’s younger buddy who sat at the same table looked up at the young guy and said something like, “See the lines on his face? That’s experience! That’s his years of putting up with young peacocks like you! They represent miles traveled and mountains climbed and rivers crossed, and he’s still standing. Now leave him be and go away!” When the young buck hesitated, the younger friend repeated, “I said, ‘Leave him be!’” And eventually, the young buck went back to the bar and turned his back on the old guy.

I know I didn’t capture that scene as well as it was written in Louis L’Amour’s book or in the movie, but I remember the scene well.

Yes, I’m old and getting older. My kids are getting older. Hannah graduates from college in December. Emily’s a senior and graduates in about three weeks. Kim and I celebrate twenty-four years together this coming July.

I have my wrinkles and what hair I do have is gray. I move a bit slower, not that I ever moved particularly fast.

Where did the time go?

Funny thing about age. One might look older, but one might feel not so much older. Not so much!

My older brother, Jack, has always said that age is a state of mind. One’s body might fail, but one’s mind and heart and soul doesn’t – unless you allow it to do so.

We can’t necessarily control how our bodies change. We can exercise and diet, but the body will do what it’s going to do. Period.

However, I think we can control our heart and our soul. We don’t have to give into the idea that we’re old. We don’t have to necessarily “act our age!” We can still laugh and act silly and sing off-key. We can still attack life and all that it offers. Perhaps not necessarily attack life, but we certainly can embrace it. All of it.

We can choose to seek new adventures as well as revisit older ones. We can take care of what we do have, and give back to those around us. We can face change . . . and age . . . bravely, fiercely. And when we look in the mirror and see that our hair, those of us who have some, has turned gray. We will see that there might be a few more lines on our face. But we can choose to face that reflection and smile, knowing that each of us, you and I, rode miles, and climbed mountains, and crossed rivers, and know deep within that there are still many more miles and mountains and rivers to come our way. Something to think about . . .

Live Your Life, and Make A Difference!

To My Readers:
Book One, Stolen Lives:
Two thirteen year old boys are abducted off a safe suburban street. Kelliher and his team of FBI agents have 24 hours to find them or they’ll end up like all the others- dead! They have no leads, no clues, and nothing to go on. And the possibility exists that one of his team members might be involved.

Book Two, Shattered Lives:
Arrest warrants were issued, but six dangerous men escaped and are out for revenge. The boys, recently freed from captivity, are in danger and so are their families, but they don’t know it. The FBI has no clues, no leads, and nothing to go on and because of that, cannot protect them.

Book Three of the Lives Trilogy, Splintered Lives:
It began in Arizona and it ends in Arizona- in death. A 14 year old boy has a price on his head, but he and his family don’t know it. Their vacation turns into a trip to hell. Out gunned and outnumbered, can this boy protect his father and brothers? Without knowing who these men are? Or how many there are? Or when they might come for him, for them?  

The Lives Trilogy Prequel, Taking Lives:
FBI Agent Pete Kelliher and his partner search for the clues behind the bodies of six boys left in various and remote parts of the country. Even though they live hundreds of miles apart, the lives of Kelliher, 11 year old Brett McGovern, and 11 year old George Tokay are separate pieces of a puzzle. The two boys become interwoven with the same thread that Pete Kelliher holds in his hand and are on a collision course with death.

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Thank you for your comment. I welcome your thought. Joe