To Die with your Boots on

When I watched "Secondhand Lions" and the way they chose to go out I thought, "Far Out. That's the way to go out in style." I immediately thought of my father and grandfather who were a lot like the two characters in the movie, especially my grandfather was almost exactly like them both, guns and all.

Now of course that movie is just sort of an idyllic exit for two guys that have really lived and traveled the world and who chose how to end their lives as men. My wife knows how I feel that I intend to keep having adventures around the world until one day I'll be gone. Though I'm only 62 and likely have 10 to 20 to 30 or more years still left within me, still having almost died three times in my life from illnesses so far and countless times from near misses, still I often contemplate how I want to choose to exit my life. Many women choose to go to a retirement home but that will never be my choice. I will always try to find another way with my very last breath. However, I once saw a movie called "Windwalker" that I believe was a Sioux story from before there were white men. It is from whatever tribe or tribes practices "sky burial" where they build platforms of wood so wolves and bears don't eat them and only birds can eat the corpse. In this story and old  native American Indian of the tribe is placed upon his sky burial place but then is awakened and has a fight with a bear and realizes that his family needs him to protect them still. So he comes back to life to protect them and after that prepares for that once again.

windwalker

Windwalker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7lHKEyehpQ

This story was very touching and the above sections of the movie are three different ones even though the first two  are named the same and   are at youtube.com
The final battle scene is the one that ends ehpQ

I checked netflix and they don't have the movie on DVD so that might mean it was only on VHS tape but you might be able to get a full copy of it somewhere.

Anyway, to die with your boots on is an ideal way to go out. However, we all know we don't live in an ideal world and we all will do whatever we have to for our closest loved ones. But if there is a useful choice I will also die with my boots on when and (if)  that day ever comes.

In my family the men all thought they were immortal until they all died but me and my wife and children.