No Place for Sissies, Part 2: Looking Back

In my previous blog,  I began what I hope will be a useful dialogue on the subject of growing older. A lot of my thoughts in this area lately have been about looking back over my life thus far, sort of assessing my successes and failures, thinking about how I have lived my life, what I did well and what I might have done better.  Looking back and sort of grading ourselves takes a bit of courage. I think it is part of the reason for Bette Davis' warning about old age not being for sissies.


As often happens when I am mulling something over, I have been reminded of a some songs that present divergent views about the results of looking back over one's life.  One of those is Frank Sinatra's classic "I Did it My Way."   This song presents the thoughts of someone facing "the final curtain" and thinking about how well he did. His self-assessment is that he was someone who planned his life, lived it according to his own rules, did things his own way, always stood tall, and, although he has regrets, they are "too few to mention."   Hmmm.  Pretty impressive record.

Another song that tells the story of a man looking back over his life is Harry Chapin's  "Cat's in the Cradle."  When I was a young man, it was one of my favorites, but these days I find its message so disturbing that I usually avoid it.   But I listened to it today, and was struck again by the fatalistic view of his life the man unfolds. The story begins when he is young man, busy with his career.  His son is born, but the young man is busy pursuing what is most important to him, and time goes by faster than he expects it to.  Now he is old, and looking back on his life, and wants to spend time with the son he neglected.  Only now the son is too busy for him.  The little boy's wish to be "just like him" has come true, but that fact is portrayed as a curse, as the tendency of some  men to value the wrong things, to make the wrong choices until it is too late, and to pass that failure along to their sons.  In other words, instead of giving himself on all A's on Life's Big Report Card
like the man in the Frank Sinatra song does, Harry Chapin's fellow gives himself nothing but F's.  And, oh, by the way, his son will fail at life, too, and there nothing he can do to make any of it any better.  He and his son were both failures before they even started out.  Let's all just kill ourselves now.

I think both of these views are unfair and dishonest.  I don't think anyone who has learned anything in life can look back and honestly say they have no regrets.  And I also don't believe anyone is ever a complete failure, or that there is ever a time when it is impossible to rectify past mistakes, perhaps by making the future better.  Some people are afraid to admit that they might have done some things better, that they should have made different decisions. Others are too hard on their younger selves, forgetting that when they made whatever mistakes they condemn themselves for, they had not yet gained the experience and wisdom that now allows them to see where they erred.

As I look back on my own life, in general I think I have done pretty well.  The biggest regrets I have are the times when I have treated people unkindly. There are things I might do differently, given the chance.  I sometimes wish I had been a lot less serious and goal-oriented in my youth, that I had taken time to have more fun.  I also wish I had been more willing to take risks, to make changes and try things that were a bit scary.   But I don't condemn myself for not making those choices.   For the most part, I did the best I could in most situations, and I don't have any huge regrets or failures to be ashamed of.

Some people I know that are my age do have major regrets.  When they talk about their pasts, some express shame, some grow wistful, wishing things had been different.  "For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these:  it might have been." --  John Greenleaf Whittier.  To those folks I say, there is still tomorrow.

While it is true that getting older and honestly assessing our lives are not for sissies, it also true that facing our regrets and learning what we can from them makes it possible to make our futures better, to look forward to doing things differently, and perhaps doing the things we always wanted to, but never got around to.

More about looking forward in my next blog.


Copyright © 2013 by Steven W. Fouse

No Place For Sissies, Part 1: Getting Old

Actress Bette Davis once said, "Old age is no place for sissies."

I don't really think of myself as as old, more like middle-aged. But realistically, unless I live to be 114, I know that I have already lived more years than I can expect to continue living this life.

And I'm starting to understand what old Bette meant, I think.  I know that I am blessed in so many ways.  I have a wonderful wife to whom I have been married for almost 37 years.  Our relationship gets better every year.  I have a wonderful family who love and respect me.  I am still in good health.  I am gainfully employed (at least for the moment). Still, I am beginning to feel some of what Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey meant when she said, "Time is a cruel thief to rob us of our former selves. We lose as much to life as we do to death."

Time has yet to rob me of much of what I hold dear, but it is hard not to think of the future without some trepidation about what lies ahead.  I have seen enough of what happens to people as they get old, and most of it is not good.  I often think it is harder for men to get old than for women, mostly because the men I have known well who have been the victims of Time's thievery have not dealt with it very well.  Who can blame them?  It must be devastating to lose the parts of yourself that define you as a man, your strength, your virility, your abilities, your independence, maybe your self-respect.

When we consider our own mortality, it is inevitable that we make judgments about how well we have lived this life, that we wonder what it all means.  Some folks dwell on the futility of it all.  A famous fictional example of this is Shakespeare's murderous king Macbeth.  Upon learning that his wife had died, Macbeth responded with:

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

Steve's modern English translation:  Life is one stupid day after another, and it only leads to death.  Let's get it over with, because although we all struggle through our lives and the challenges we face, we all just end of up dead and forgotten.  It is just a lot of noise, pain, and anger, and in the end, it doesn't mean anything. It means nothing.  

Let me be quick to say that I don't subscribe to Macbeth's conclusions about life, his nihilism. As I follower of Christ, I take comfort in Jesus' words, "I have told you these things, so that you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)  Jesus was telling his disciples, and by extension us, that sorrow is just part of this life, and is to be expected, including the kinds of sorrow that come with growing older.  It is not my purpose here to try to convince anyone that they should adopt my beliefs about Christ.  As it has been said, "For those who believe, no proof is necessary.  For those who don't believe, no proof is possible."

However, I believe that whether you believe that life means nothing, or you have a faith or philosophy that gives you hope, growing old and facing what comes with it is not easy.  I think it is important to think about the issues that growing older brings, and so to try to cope with them as best we can. I hope I have a few years before the really hard parts come, but I have thought about a lot of them as I have observed people who are struggling with aging and the losses it brings.  I have looked back over my life, and I have looked forward.  I have struggled with fear of the future, and with fear of the present, and the extreme changes in our culture that have occurred in my lifetime. I have thought about the ways my self-image has changed, and ways it might continue to change as I grow older. I have seen others face death, and have been confronted by my own mortality.

To be honest, I have far more questions than answers. I would like to explore some of those questions with you in a series of blogs called "No Place for Sissies."  Maybe we can answer some of them together.

Copyright © 2013 by Steven W. Fouse

Both Sides Now

If you are around the same age as I am, or if you are familiar with "Golden Oldies" music from the 1960's and 70's, then you probably remember Judy Collins' recording of Joni Mitchell's beautiful, although perhaps somewhat maudlin, song "Both Sides Now."

In the song, which Judy Collins sings like an angel, she talks about several aspects of living and how she has viewed them at earlier points in her life.  The specific things she sings about are clouds, love, and life.  She says that as she has progressed through her life, her perspective on each of these things has changed, and so therefore her ideas about each of them has changed.

This week I have been reminded of that song, and its ideas about changing perspectives, because I find myself in a situation that is completely new to me, in a place I never really expected to be.   After 32 years with the same employer, yesterday I was one of about 200 people who are part of what is legally referred to  as a "mass lay-off" (as I learned in the letter they gave me on the subject).   During my tenure at that job, there were several lay-offs in the past, but I always survived them.  I was always on the "win" side mentioned in Judy's song.  This time I am on the "lose" side.

The real theme of "Both Sides Now" is the illusions we live under until some event changes our perspective.  In the past, the criteria for who would be laid off and who would not included tenure, and job performance, such things as quality of work, ability to self-motivate and lead others, and ability in special assignments, such as writing portions of proposals to win the company new contracts.   I rated well in all these areas, so I was always safe, or so I thought.  It turns out, looking at this lay-off from the "lose" side, that my belief in my job security was an illusion like the ones Judy Collins sings about.

Because of our Federal government's inability to do what we elect them to do, because of sequestration, and the budget impasse, the criteria for this lay-off were different than before.  Most of  the work we did at my job was funded from the same big pot of money.  A few other tasks were funded separately from other agencies in the government.  This layoff was the result of the big pot of money being eliminated.  If your job was funded by that money, it was eliminated.  Only the jobs with funding from other sources were safe.  My job was from the big pot, so I was out.   Seniority, quality of work, and all that other stuff didn't matter this time.

Finding oneself suddenly out of work at age 57 is devastatingly shocking. After so long, many of the people I worked with were like family.  Although I did not always love my job, it always gave me self-respect, the feeling that I was capable and valued, somewhere to go each day, and something to do that mattered.   Ironically, in recent months I had grown to like my job more than ever and I finally realized how much it meant to me, how much it defined who I was.  Facing the loss of all that is much like dealing with the death of a loved one.

I know that although this is the end of a major part of my life, as Judy's song says, "something's lost and something's gained in living every day."  I have lost my job, but I have gained an opportunity to do something new, to learn new skills, meet new people, perhaps live in a new place.  I don't think I would have ever chosen to do those things if I were not forced into it.  So, like the cliche says, a door has been closed.  Now I need to find the open window.

One thing I am determined to do is to avoid becoming a victim.  Someone smart told me this week that battered women who believe they deserve the abuse they receive remain victims.   But when they become angry at their abusers, they are able to realize they are not to blame for what happened to them, and  from that belief comes the ability to take steps to change their lives.  The person who told me that said I need to be angry at what happened to me to avoid being destroyed by it.   I think I've got that covered because I am mad as hell at our incompetent government and the suffering it is inflicting on so many decent people across this country.

However, I'm not going to get stuck in anger and grief, either.  Gone is whatever illusion I had that the future of my job was secure.  Now my future is uncertain.  It was always was.  I just didn't know it.






Copyright © 2013 by Steven W. Fouse

The Seeds of Faith

Each day on my way to work, I pass by lots of places here in my hometown that remind me of my life as a child, schools I attended, places I used to go with my family.  One of them is Immanuel Baptist Church.  Seeing that little church takes me back to some of my first memories of learning about the faith that would become an important part of me.  I remember being there and singing all the typical Sunday School songs, including "Jesus Loves Me" and "Jesus Loves the Little Children." 

I remember that the latter song always made me wonder what "red and yellow" little children would look like,  because I associated those colors with the ones I knew from my crayon box.  I was also a little unclear on how the coins I brought for offering made their way to God. Or was it Jesus that got them?  And what was the deal with Jesus and God?  Which of them was in charge of what?  

Since we were an Army family, we moved a lot, so Immanuel Baptist was followed by Westwood Baptist, also here in Lawton, and First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, KS, outside Ft. Riley.  When you go that far north, churches have to specify which Baptists they are, unlike down south, where " Baptist" always means "Southern Baptist."  Later when we moved back here, we went to Westwood again.

I have vivid memories of all these churches, of being so young that everything was confusing, especially matters of religion and faith, which most people, if they are being honest, would have to say remain somewhat fuzzy long after their childhood is over.  

Later, I learned that Jesus said that a lot about faith, and that he used stories, or parables, to impart his wisdom. One of the things he said is that his Kingdom is like a mustard seed, a tiny little seed that, when planted, grows into the largest of the garden plants, as big as a tree.  When I drive by Immanuel Baptist church, I am reminded that it was there, and in those other churches I attended as a child, where I sang those songs, and met people of faith, and gained a child's  imperfect understanding of God.  Those experiences, and my mother's strong faith, were the seeds of my own faith in Christ. 

As a child, my faith was simple.  It was OK that I didn't have everything figured out, that I didn't quite understand everything they talked about in church.  I didn't worry about those things much, because the basis of my faith, the belief that God loved me and cared about me and my life, was very real to me.  I believed those things partly because I was taught them at church and by my mother, but mainly because I experienced them for myself.  I knew God and his Son, and I knew that they loved me.  I don't know why this was true for me, I just know that it was.

As an adult, I became involved in lots of church activities, such as teaching Bible classes and being in church leadership.  I felt it was important to do these things to show God  (and other people)  that I was serious about my faith.  It was important to me to live out my faith for my children to see, and working in the church was how I tried to do that.  Some of the "church work" I did was deeply rewarding.  However, a lot of it was drudgery, done because I felt I had to, that not serving at church was not an option.   I was drawn into all kinds of church drama that didn't do much to glorify God.  (If you've been part of any church, you've probably seen the kind of stuff I'm talking about.)   I know now that a lot of the things I did to serve God were pretty far removed from the seeds of my faith.

These days I don't do any church work.  My faith has taken a path that  I would never have expected, one that does not include a congregation at present.  I am not bitter, or overly cynical.  What I am , is open to questions in ways that I never allowed myself to be when I was in church.   There are plenty of things that churches teach that I  no longer believe, or at least allow myself to question.  I no longer accept the doctrine of eternal torment for everyone who doesn't profess Christ.  Despite the emphatic proclamations of some, I do not believe that God hates homosexuals.  Or anyone else, for that matter.  I no longer feel that I have to have an answer to every theological question.  It is once again OK that I don't have everything figured out.

Some people who lose faith in their church, who allow them themselves to ask questions,  ultimately lose their faith completely.  They leave it behind like their childish beliefs in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.  I am glad that that is not the case for me.  Although my  faith has changed, it has also grown.  Although I doubt some things that churches teach, I have never doubted those fundamentals, the seeds of my faith that I experienced when I was so young, that God loves me and that Jesus is my friend.

It is difficult to write about matters of faith without sounding trite, like someone who just parrots what he has been taught.  I hope I have avoided that, but if not, that's OK.  How do you explain or defend something you believe, something that you know, to someone who doesn't understand your faith?  You can't.  And that's OK too.  I know what I believe, and why I believe it.  For that I am thankful.


Copyright © 2013 by Steven W. Fouse

Will the Real You Please Stand Up?

Anybody else remember Kitty Carlisle?

Back in the days of black-and-white TV, back when I was just a kid, there was a game show called To Tell the Truth.  The premise of the show was simple; three contestants would appear, each claiming to be the same person, someone with some minor claim to fame.  The game started with the three walking on, and being asked the question,  "Contestant number 1 (or 2 or 3), what is your name, please?"  Each contestant would give the same name, and the celebrity panelists would ask them questions to try and determine exactly who of the was the real Barnabas Blatherskite, inventor of the underwater can-opener, or whoever they were all claiming to be.  After all the questions were asked and answered, the celebrities would vote, and the announcer would dramatically say "Will the real [person's name] please stand up?"  The real one would stand, the impostors would be exposed, and the panelists who happened to vote correctly would glory in their astuteness and powers of deduction.

I was reminded of To Tell the Truth because I have noticed that people act in different ways in different situations.  A great example of this was Chip, a guy I used to work with.  In person, Chip was kind of dour, sort of all-business, and seemed to have no sense of humor at all.  However, in the course of our work, we exchanged lots of e-mails, in which Chip would reveal another side of himself that no one would ever suspect.  He was witty, clever, and had a keen sense of humor.  Try as I might, though, I could never induce the e-mail version of Chip to reveal himself in person. It was almost as if he were two different people.

More recently, I have noticed a similar situation with Marsha, a woman I currently work with.  In person, she is nice enough, but rather withdrawn, and exhibits little or no sense of humor.  On the phone, however, she is a riot, expressing the same kind of cynical, Dilbert-is-my-life sense of humor that I have.   Often, I laugh out loud when I am speaking with her on the phone, and wonder who she really is once the conversation is over.  Will the real Marsha please stand up?

And you may have noticed a difference in some of your real-life friends when they interact with others on Facebook, where many people feel free to be someone really different from whom they appear to be outside of Cyberspace.   Brad Paisley explored this phenomenon in his song  "Online," about a geek who is "so much cooler online."

So, what's the deal?  Why don't people behave the same way in every situation?   Are they trying to fool those around them by pretending to be what they are not?  If they seem one way in person and another way in e-mail, on the phone, or on social media, which one of them is the real one?  Who are they, anyway?

In college I minored in psychology, and observing people and the things they do has always been fascinating to me.  We often have discussions at our house about personality tests, and the various results that they show.  There are many of the these tests, and you might be a Lion or an Otter on one test, Sanguine or Melancholic on another, or an INFP on another.    These tests and the results are interesting to think about, and to talk about, but I think they can make it easy to lock people into categories into which they don't completely fit, or at least don't fit all the time.

An example of this is the "I" on the Briggs-Myers personality test.  It stands for "introvert," as opposed to extrovert, which is the other possibility under this model.  A simple definition for these terms is that an introvert is energized by spending time alone, while an extrovert is energized by spending time with other people.  I have often observed that, while my brother Scott and I are alike in many ways, he is an extrovert and I am an introvert.  However, when I made this observation recently to some family members, some of them said they thought that Scott is also an introvert .  And when I described myself as an introvert to a lady I have worked with for more than 30 years, she was astonished, and said that she would have sworn that I am an extrovert.

Have you ever noticed that there are some people with whom you are more relaxed, with whom you feel accepted, with whom you can make jokes, while there are other people with whom you feel inhibited or intimidated?  Are there some situations in which you act one way, and other situations you act another way?  If so, which one of these behaviors represents the real you?   Which one makes you an impostor?  If you're an introvert, for example, aren't you supposed to be one all the time?

I think we do people a disservice when we try to define or judge them too much by the ways they sometimes act.  I have noticed this happens often in religious institutions when someone's weakness is revealed, when they fail to live up to their own standards, and the standards of the institution.   While I agree that it is shocking and disappointing to learn that a televangelist visits prostitutes, for example, does that fact discount every good thing he may have done in his life?  Does it mean that he doesn't love God, that he has no heart for people, that everything he ever did before he erred was just an act, that he was never anything more than a hypocrite?  I don't think so.

For me, it is useful to realize that people are many things, and some of them are not always evident to us.  When someone surprises you with a behavior you haven't observed in them before, they probably aren't faking like the geek in Brad Paisley's song, or being impostors like the contestants on To Tell the Truth, although people sometimes do seek to deceive us. But mostly, I think people are gloriously complicated, like Chip or Marsha, possessing personality characteristics that reveal themselves in surprising ways.  It is tempting for us to want to put everyone into a box, or to define them as types or by labels, or to expect them to always be the same.  People, who they really are, change with each moment and each experience.  Being in flux is part of being alive.

Copyright © 2013 by Steven W. Fouse

Going With the Flow

This morning I woke up early, around 4:30, which seems to be the time my internal clock has recently decided should be the hour when I spring from bed, eagerly anticipating the wonders of a new day.   Or something like that.  I had decided last night that since I had been to the gym the past three mornings, I should take a break this morning and sleep in a little, say until about 6:00.  Since that plan didn't work out, I decided that I would just go to work a bit early instead, and get in a little extra time.  That way, I would be able to take a little comp time on Friday, when I plan to get a head start on my Christmas vacation.

So, I got myself ready and went to work.  I got there at 6:52, which is 38 minutes earlier than my normal start time.  My plan was to add those 38 minutes to the extra time I had already worked this pay period and use it all on Friday.   (The point to this fascinating narrative is coming soon, I promise.) 

Usually, I eat a breakfast sandwich at my desk after I get to work, thus maximizing my productivity by not wasting a lot of time on trivial things like eating.   I also normally transport some of my morning medications in a little pill holder and take them with my breakfast, as directed by my physician and pharmacist.  ("Take this medication with food.")  Well, today when I looked in my briefcase for my pill holder, it wasn't there.  This could mean only one thing:  I had forgotten to take any of my morning medications!  

I should probably mention at this point that one of the things that I pride myself in is being organized.  I do not forget to do the things I am supposed to do.  I make a plan and I execute it in the most efficient way possible.  If there are errands to be run, I decide on the most direct route to take to avoid things like doubling back and wasting time and gas.  Once I have formulated my plan, I am more than a little reluctant to deviate from it.  In fact, if a need arises to stray from the path I have set before myself for the day, it often causes me extreme stress, and leads to my berating myself for screwing up.  If I were being completely honest, I would have to say that I am slightly OCD, and that I am too uptight about things that don't go the way I plan them. 

 So, anyway, I had a choice to make.  I could forget about the medications, or I could go back home (what?) and take them.  Now if you are blessed enough to be unaware that one of the joys of being middle-aged is the need to take a bunch of medications to, you know, avoid an untimely death,  you might think that not taking those pills wouldn't be such a big deal. And I have actually missed taking my morning meds a few times and did not realize it until I got home in the evening, so I probably wouldn't have died today without them. Probably. 

To tell the truth, until recently, I would almost certainly have risked death today rather than change what I had planned to do.  Go back home?  Drive 20 minutes both ways after having already driven it once today?  Waste all that gas and time?  No way.  Not in the plan.  Not gonna happen.  Or, if I had decided that I probably ought to try to make sure to live at least until Friday, when the world is scheduled to end,  deciding to change my plans, to screw up my whole day, and to do all that redundant driving, that decision would have brought me huge amounts of stress, including a headache, a stiff neck, a distressed stomach, and general misery. 

However, I recently found an article on line called "Tips on How to Become a Calmer Person."  I found this article because I Googled, "how to become a calmer person," having realized that some of the my personal traits, which are strengths in the area of accomplishing goals, do not always allow me to, shall we say, be kind to myself.  In fact, I tend to drive myself crazy stressing over things that I can't control.  That article is worth your time, but if you don't want to bother, I will share some of the points that most got my attention:

1.  It is important to accept that things will not always go as we planned in life.   (Shocking, I know, but true.)
2.  There is no point worrying over something that you cannot control.  My amplification of that idea is that you aren't being irresponsible if you don't worry.
3. Most of the things we worry about or get stressed out about turn out to be not as bad as we expected.
4. If you think of yourself as a calm person, you are more likely to be one.
5. A calm mind can resolve almost any situation, whereas a stressed mind only makes things worse.

So this morning when the Horror of the Forgotten Meds occurred,  I decided to put some of these principals into action.  I realized that of course I should go home and take my meds,  that it was only a big deal if I thought it was, and I could change my plans for the day without completely unraveling.  I calmly left my office, headed home, and did what I had to do.  Going both ways, I concentrated on not freaking out.  I heard some great songs on the radio, and on the way back to the office, when I was heading east, I saw a beautiful Oklahoma sky, streaked with red and pink and blue and purple as the sun came up.  If I hadn't altered my plan for the day, I would have missed those songs and that spectacular sky.
That sky seems an apt metaphor about some other things I have been thinking about lately, things that are more important than my plans for a given day.  One of the things I have noticed about getting older, about being closer to geezerhood than I care to admit, is that my reactions to the world recently have not exactly been positive.   It is easy for older people to view the world with disdain, with disapproval, and disappointment that things haven't turned the way they had planned, the way they expected.   Recently, I have been disturbed by conditions and events that may disturb you as well.  I am extremely concerned about our dysfunctional Federal government, about the divisions in our country, about the fact that our society and our culture seem to be disintegrating, about the prevalence of violence, and a million other things that tell me the world is not what I thought it would be, not what I wanted it to be in my later years.

When I was a teenager learning to drive, my mother told me that it often best to go with the flow of traffic.  As an example, if you can get where you are going by making a right turn with the flow of traffic rather than trying to turn left against the flow of the traffic nearest you, going with the flow is easier and generally safer.   I have come to realize, that while I believe my concerns about the world today are legitimate, it is important to remember rule number 1 above, that things don't always go as we had planned.   Hating what the world has become does not change it.

For me, going with the flow does not mean passively accepting the world and my life as it is.  I still have the responsibility to try to improve things in whatever ways possible, such as by voting for candidates I believe will improve things, by supporting causes important to me, and by trying to bridge divisions between people when I can.  However, I don't have to let the fact that the world disappoints me rob me of my peace of mind.  What if I'm wrong?  What if the world only seems so bad to me because of when I was born, and the attitudes I developed back in the Last Millennium?  And even if the world is truly as bad as it seems to me, what good does it do to be consumed by that?  If I relax and take things as they come, if I go with the flow as much as I can, will I see a beautiful sky I hadn't expected?  Maybe.

The End of the World

There is a lot of talk lately about the End of the World.  This, of course, is because the Mayan calendar runs out on December 21, 2012.   The Mayans were evidently world-class calender keepers, so some people are a little worried that the Mayans might be right, and the end is near.  This is kind of silly, it seems to me, because I don't remember ever before hearing about anything the Mayans said or believed.   So, why should anyone believe their supposed prediction about the End of the World?  Besides, they didn't specifically predict the End;  their calendar just stops later this month.

I think part of the reason that many are interested in the end of the Mayan calendar is that people are fascinated about possibility of an Apocalypse.  In recent years we've heard a lot about Near Earth Objects, which are things flying around in the cosmos close enough to the Earth that there is a possibility that they could slam into our little blue sphere,  thereby ruining our plans to experience the Fleetwood Mac  reunion tour, or go to visit Breckenridge next summer, or whatever.  Oh, and it would kill us all, or at least most of us.

There is much in popular movies, books, and TV shows that explores what the world would be like after some catastrophe, or plague, or hordes of  Zombies had killed most of the Earth's population.  This stuff sells because people are interested considering possible futures, however unlikely they may be.  We all wonder about what may lay ahead, both for each of us individually  and the world as a whole.  What's going to happen in 2013?  How old will I be when I die?  What kinds of lives will my grandkids live?   And the biggest question of all:  What happens after I die?  Whatever you believe about life after death, no one really knows what's on the other side.  Shakespeare's Hamlet called the afterlife "the undiscovered country...from which no traveler returns...." He was right, of course; tickets for trips to the Other Side are usually one way.

So, we don't know what the future holds, and for that reason it is fascinating to consider ideas about the future, even horrifying ones.  I have always tended to ponder the future, especially this time of year, when another Christmas is at hand, a new year is upon us, and I'll celebrate another birthday next month. (Where do the years go?)  The recent past has provided plenty of reasons to be concerned (worried?) about the coming days.  While we may not face the End of the World soon, some kind of lower-case "end of the world" seems at least possible.  People on both sides of the political aisle were certain that if their guy didn't win the 2012 Presidential election, we were all doomed. Whatever your political bent, it is clear that our government is pathetically broken, and now we face the Fiscal Cliff, which, while not the Killer Flu of Doom, certainly wouldn't be a good thing.   Lots of people are wondering if next year will include their continued employment.

A couple of months back, the fact of the unpredictability of the future was brought home forcefully to  my wife Dana and me, and to lots of people we know.  A horrific automobile accident occurred at the busy intersection outside the surgery center where Dana works.  As it happens, Dana was in the parking lot helping a patient into his car, when she noticed a cement mixer making a right turn from the east, to go north past the west side of the parking lot she was in.  As she turned away to tend to the patient, she heard a horrific sound, which she described a huge crunch.  When she turned back to see what had happened, she saw the source of the crunch: The cement mixer had somehow tipped over as it was making the turn, and it was resting on its driver's side, on top of a small passenger car.  The driver's side of the car was flattened.  She shouted for another nurse, and they ran down to see if they could help anyone.  It was immediately clear that there was nothing they, or anyone, could do for the lady in the car.  She had been killed instantly.

Within a matter of minutes, word about the wreck was all over town, although the details were sketchy.  The local TV web site showed a shocking picture of the wreck and reported that one woman had been killed.  Dana called me to tell me about it and to let me know that she had witnessed the wreck, but was not the victim, which I appreciated, since she works at that location.  A few minutes after that, a friend at work came to my cubicle and asked me if I had seen the picture on the internet.   I told her I had and that Dana had been a witness.  My friend then told me that the victim was someone we both knew.  She had worked at the same place we do, and so do her husband and her mother.

As this fact became generally known,  the almost universal reaction among the people I work with was disbelieving shock.  How could this happen?  We saw this lady everyday.  We knew her family members.  She was in her forties, and had found happiness in a new marriage.  How could she be dead?  She was just driving around town, doing the things on her schedule for that day, and now she was dead, killed in unimaginably horrible way. The resulting conclusion for us who worked with her, and for Dana, and for many people in town who watched the news and saw the pictures of the accident site, was inescapable.  If this could happen to the her, it could happen to anyone.  It could happen to someone I love. It could happen to me.

Of course, this fact was not and is not news to anyone.  We all know that the days of our lives are finite, that we will all die.  We all know know that, whatever we have planned for tomorrow, or next week, or next summer, we have no real idea what is going to befall us.  This is not news, but so often we react in shock and horror when these facts are forced upon us by some event like this accident. Perhaps it is necessary for people to put aside that knowledge to a degree to avoid being overwhelmed by it.

Recently I have been reading Bill O'Reilly's book Killing Lincoln.  In it, O'Reilly reveals that Lincoln had dreams and premonitions that his death was near.   In fact, he was certain that he would not live long past the end of the Civil War.  He was right.  However, he refused to be mastered by that knowledge.  O'Reilly writes that Lincoln said, "If I am killed I can die but once, but to live in constant dread is to die over and over again."

I consider that great advice from a great man about how to face whatever lies ahead.

Copyright © 2013 by Steven W. Fouse