Monday, July 18, 2011

It was a good, short life, but now it's time to go...

I HAVE wonderful friends. In this last year, one took me to Istanbul. One gave me a box of hand-crafted chocolates. Fifteen of them held two rousing, pre-posthumous wakes for me. Several wrote large checks. Two sent me a boxed set of all the Bach sacred cantatas. And one, from Texas, put a hand on my thinning shoulder, and appeared to study the ground where we were standing. He had flown in to see me.

“We need to go buy you a pistol, don’t we?” he asked quietly. He meant to shoot myself with.

“Yes, Sweet Thing,” I said, with a smile. “We do.”

I loved him for that.

 I love them all. I am acutely lucky in my family and friends, and in my daughter, my work and my life. But I have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S., more kindly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, for the great Yankee hitter and first baseman who was told he had it in 1939, accepted the verdict with such famous grace, and died less than two years later. He was almost 38. More...

Don't miss:
  1. Is there life after death? 
  2. At the hour of death...
  3. Who are We? (Must see absolutely)
  4. Let's ride motorcycles! Wow! 
  5. Are you dancing? Life is meant to be enjoyed... 
  6. Robert Monroe talks about his out of body experience... 

2 comments:

  1. Ahh, death. I have flirted with her all my life. I have lived very close to death. Now, time is running out, and I almost welcome it. It is a transition and I am ready for it. Any old time, Death. Stop by any old time.

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