However, I couldn't really understand this fully until he passed away when I was 37 years old. Then I was lost in many ways for about 13 years of my life from age 37 until 50 when I almost died myself.
At age 37 I was dealing (starting to) with Middle Aged Crazy. Your youth is slipping away from you and you notice this.
Several things happened between age 37 and around 40 that showed me I was getting older.
First one I was free climbing a cliff over the ocean near big Sur. I had been rock climbing since I was a child and so free climbing over water seemed okay to me (at that moment at age 37 or 38) my father had passed away in 1985 a year or more before this.
As I climbed up the rock face over the ocean I was free climbing in that I knew I could survive the fall off into the ocean if I peeled off the wall for any reason and I made sure there were no rocks immediately under me in the ocean so I knew in an emergency I could peel off and survive.
However, then I made a relatively easy move and wound up ripping most of the muscles off the back of my right knee. It was so excruciatingly painful I soon found myself falling. But, the water was 52 to 56 degrees then near Big Sur and I was soon in shock from the temperature of the water. Plus I couldn't use my right leg to swim only my left leg and my two arms so I was almost drowning not being able to use my right leg. Then as I reached the short even three or 4 foot waves were drowning me without my right leg to swim with and I couldn't easily stand up. Then my wife and children came to rescue me out of the surf because they were down the beach looking at a dead whale that had beached itself.
This was the first way I knew I was getting older.
The second way I knew I was getting older was when I was around 40 years old and I was skiing down from Bunny Flats to 7 mile Curve and I hit a patch of ice. I thought I could recover and not go into the splits but then I hit another patch or ice which tore my thigh muscle this time. I had to ski about a mile two out of that situation in excruciating pain on one ski because one leg didn't work this time either.
This also taught me I wasn't a 20 something anymore or even a 30 or 32 year old anymore.
So, each of these things only made it all worse to be getting older and it made me miss my father more each of these things.
Since I'm 6 foot 5 inches tall and always was sort of a ladies man with my girlfriends until I got married at age 26 and had a son, my physicality was always very important to me. So, beginning to lose my youth and getting seriously injured to where I had to drag one leg for 6 months when I pulled my thigh in one leg really was hard on me.
However, reality is important if you want to stay alive to old age.
But, this was the beginning of my march towards aging after I lost my father at age 37 and he was 69.
Learning to live without my father in my life was very hard for me.
He was like a Spiritual John Wayne and very macho and brilliant and at times he could also be scary because he had survived both the Great Depression and World war II like my Mom did too.
Also, I sort of psychologically lost my Mom also when my Dad died and I felt sort of lost without the both of them there with me in my life.
So, I sort of lost both of them when my Dad died because she went back to being more who she was from 18 to 27 when she started dating my Dad in order to survive her life too.
So, this state of mind was before I was born. So, in some ways I lost them both when my father Died and this was very hard until I almost died myself at age 50.
Almost dying at 50 was in some ways the best thing that ever happened to me because I moved into a State of Grace with God.
In other words I knew every moment left in my life was only by the Grace of God.
So, I learned to be grateful for every moment I had left with God and Angels and my family and my friends.
By God's Grace
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