L I F E
isn’t about a number of Candles
on a quick-to-go-stale
Birthday Cake. . .
. . .Maybe the best part of old age for anyone is that they can actually
A T T A I N I T
There are Givens:
Death is the Number One Killer in the World. . .
Life is Sexually Transmitted and it’s
T E R M I N A L . . .
and it ENDS. . .
usually
just not as well as we’d like. . .
Great Health,
it turns out,
is merely the slowest possible rate
at which anyone can ever die. . .
But. . .
After some 804 months
3495 weeks and five days
24,472 Days on this spinning blue ball
587,328 hours
35,239,680 minutes
268,202,880 seconds,
I’ve learned a few lessons. . .
and the biggest one:
There’s just a few more lessons to learn. . .
There was a recent survey taken in the UK that said the biggest fears men have growing older are:
94% fear going bald
89% fear becoming impotent
75% are worried about going grey
64% are scared of getting fat
61% fear losing their teeth
45% dread needing ‘jam jar’ glasses
31% are scared of going deaf
24% are frightened of getting bad breath
100% of me is concerned that I wasted time. . .
that somehow,
I didn’t become all of
M E
I regret little of what I’ve ever done. . .
even the not-so-good-kind-of-horrific-things
because they’ve all made up the tapestry of my life–
especially the dark, ugly colors;
It’s the strands of threads
that I didn’t allow to become a part of the mosaic. . .
to expand it
that taunts me;
It’s not the two-self published books,
it’s the yet-to-be published two novels,
five Children’s books,
three non-fiction books
four books of poetry
and the yet to be written ones
that fill stacks of notebooks and overflowing file folders. . . .
I have no interest in spewing out the
6 7
greatest things I’ve learned in my
6 7 years. . .
I do believe that
R e l a t i o n s h i p s,
not technology or medical advances,
Heals me. . .
I do believe that
L O V I N G
is the greatest force in and out of this World
and when applied frequently and liberally
Y O U
not only Change. . .
The Universe does, too. . .
I do believe that the secret to long life is
simply never to let your heart stop beating
or never passing up the opportunity
of making Another’s beat better. . .
I do believe that
Life is not counted by pages on a calendar
or minutes/seconds on a clock
or candles on a cake. . .
but in
M O M E N T S
that can never be counted,
calculated,
measured
or
harnessed. . .
o n l y r e m e m b e r e d
way past a pulse,
a heart beat,
a breath
or any other means of defining Life
that can’t be definite. . . .
B I R T H D A Y S
are never what they’re cranked up to be
no matter how many you continue to collect
none of them mean a thing
until you make everyday between them mean
E V E R Y T H I N G
So. . .
about that cake. . .
I’ll pass. . .
but WOW. . .
that piece of Pecan Pie
is looking mighty, mighty
f i n e !
Join me. . .
we’ll call it a
Party. . .
a never-ending Celebration
. . .Candles are optional
The Light
is Blinding
But, at my age
I’m not much thinking about Blinking
. . .I don’t want to miss a thing
and I can’t wait to see
not so much how many more
strands I can add to this
growing-by-the-second-older-
t a p e s t r y
so much as
the different
colors
textures
that’ll get me ever closer to being
c o m p l e t e d
. . .now
ALL-WAYS
NOW
it’s time again
to bring
f l a m e
to
w i c k