There is a saying, "No one gets out of here alive!" and this may be true. I say "May be true" because I have found that anytime anyone has said in my life that something was absolute I have noticed almost always that there usually is an exception to any absolute thing anyone says. So, as a result of that I've learned to be open to exceptions.
I have been retired because of a near fatal illness now about 12 years. So, I retired at 50 because my wife said, "I need you alive. We have 2 1/2 year old and I need you alive more than I need to you work yourself to death literally." So I retired so my daughter would have a father growing up. She is now 14 years old.
However, I'm really tired of being retired and I'm ready now to do something else. However, I'm not really sure what that something else should be. But I'll figure it out just like I always have before.
The hardest traumatic events for me haven't always been my own (as in near death) they have been watching friends and relatives die (quicker and quicker since 1985). It all started when I was 37 and my dad died. Since he was larger than life (in some ways like a John Wayne figure to my Mom and I), it was impossible to replace him or even do without him in any useful way. I watched my mother become like a ship without a rudder as she moved from my father's home that he built with his own two hands in the desert above Palm Springs called Yucca Mesa above Yucca Valley, California. He built that house starting (just on weekends) from 1968 until 1980 when he retired and they finally moved into it full time. But by 1985 he was gone. And Mom didn't want to live there anymore without him. So she moved to Palm Springs and then to Ashland, Oregon and then Seattle, and then San Marcos (near San Diego) and then Hawaii and then San Marcos and then Seattle and then finally she moved near where I live near the San Francisco Bay area.
So, for me, when I lost my father in a sense I lost my mother too because she wasn't the same person anymore. She was still very emotionally supportive to me but made generally very bad financial decisions and usually did the opposite of what I thought she should do. This sequence of events contributed to my eventual divorce and remarriage. But a few years later I got a heart virus and almost died. Blaming my Dad because he died is sort of ridiculous because I was 37. But I can say I was competely unprepared for this event and my house of cards life began collapsing with his death and never really completely came back together for me until I had almost died myself.
Then I could realize fully that EACH DAY is GRACE. So, I now look at life as "Every moment you have over age 40 is GRACE" because very few people until the last 100 years made it past 40 years of age with any health left at all and living past 60 was always only for a minority of very lucky people down through history.
So, this is what I have to say about the traumas of life: I find my own personal traumas are nothing compared to the pain I have experienced losing my father, now my mother, all my grandparents, aunts, uncles, 2 of my 3 closest friends, and 4 of my cousins. Yes. I would have to say losing all one's friends and relatives (for me at least) is the most traumatic thing that life has brought to me so far. My own illnesses are nothing compared to the loss of so many so dearly loved by me. I see one of my cousins turning to his grandchildren for solace and renewal but I haven't had any grandchildren yet, so I don't know this experience. So, in the end if you want to stay sane through all the eventual deaths you will witness of everyone you love if you live long enough, you have to look for the miracles of Grace and of God in you life.
If you don't look for Miracles and for Grace through all this, how can you expect to maintain your sanity through it all and still keep going on for your spouse, or significant other and your children?
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