Cartoon by Rupert Besley
If you could live forever, would you want to? I will be 67 by the end of this year. I’m generally the oldest person in the room and in good health and mentally sound, or so I believe. I work with tremendous people both in the business of making chimes and making music who inspire me and keep me feeling young. I remember my father telling me at some point he started having to erase names from his address book as his friends passed on. Today we delete names from our contact files. On the other hand, our oldest daughter just had a baby boy, Lucca, which makes us grandparents for the first time. His birth reminds us that life renews itself, bringing hope and joy into the world.
A few of our friends have lost physical mobility and a few others have literally lost their minds to dementia. Both situations are very sad and make you wonder which is worse. Would you rather be physically OK or mentally sound, if you had to make a choice? I realize this is an impossible question to answer but it is something to contemplate – like a Zen koan. Someday medical advances will allow for an affordable fix for any ailment whether it be physical or mental. I believe this is known as nirvana. Or is it?
An elderly gentleman sat next to a woman at the bar and asked, “Do I come in here often?”
