Tuesday, September 24, 2013

When Friends Die

My wife told me today she finally was able to speak with her 95 year old stepfather. His biological kids had sort of been protecting him since his 14 year girlfriend (about 80 years old) had passed away. They were very afraid for him and protective of him even though he has not lost any mental factulties even at 95 though he walks with a cane and has a pacemaker.  So, today she finally could talk to him to see if he was all right. We had encouraged him to date when my wife's mother passed away in 1999. Especially because he didn't believe in God so this made it even more important for him to date other ladies in order for him to want to stay alive. So, this is a terrible loss for him at age 95. But he has a brother still going strong at age 99 so maybe he can weather this too.

We likely will attend her funeral in the next week sometime in southern California, but I could hear the serious relief in my wife's voice that she finally was allowed to talk to him and to know his mental faculties at least were still intact.

I think there are at the very least somewhere between 40,000 and 80,000 people over 100 now in the U.S. and this will double between now and 2020 at least. If I'm lucky I will be one of them too around 2050

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