Live Like You're Living?

There’s nothing like a faux near death experience to make you assess your life. Last Saturday night I woke up at 10:30 with chest pains. Assuming it was just indigestion I took a couple of Tums and waited. After an hour I began to wonder. I thought of my Uncle Eddie who woke up with “indigestion”. By the time his wife came back from the medicine cabinet he was dead. Most of my uncles died of heart attacks in their 50’s and early 60’s. After two hours I reran the day’s events. My wife and younger son were gone for the day for a Confirmation Retreat. My elder son and I cleaned out the flooded cellar and cleared winter debris from the yard with a four wheeler and wagon. It was beautiful outside for the first time in a long time. My son suggested we shoot our bows for a while which was a pleasant surprise. We shot some to sight in and then took shots from distances we would never try in the woods. It was great. Then we went to Mass in order to have a Sunday with no obligations. All in all a pretty good day.
By hour three without any relief, and my wife by now awake and worried , it was time to go to the ER. If you ever want to get fast service at the ER there are two choices: arrive in an ambulance or say you have chest pains. After a few checks of blood pressure, temp etc. they gave me some nitro. The pain vanished. After more tests including a stress test that afternoon, a heart problem was ruled out. It was an esophageal spasm. A very expensive tummy ache.
But what if it was my last day? Dying after a calm day with family and going to church? Boy did I luck out! It would sure beat a day of pointless argument and waking up (or not waking up) on the couch. Or going to bed angry after battling my sons’ teenage rebellion with no one in the house happy. It all ends up being the luck of the draw. The only ones who know exactly when they die are condemned prisoners and suicides. Not a group anyone aspires to. It would be impossible to live each day as your last. Staring at each sunset and sunrise as you hug your family while professing unending love to your spouse and treating your fellow man with love and respect? Every day? It would be completely incompatible with earning a living or even driving! Moderation in all things is supposed to be the key to happiness. Although “live like you’re dying “ made a teary country song, it lacks practicality. This experience does make it easier however to put work, bills, deadlines, news and financial woes in their proper place.

Buy That Rifle

I went to Cabela's fabulous store in Pennsylvania while visiting my sister. I was overwhelmed. I was not expecting the sheer size or number of displays. The deer display alone must have been in the hundreds. They had examples of every possible species you would have ever thought could be hunted and some you wouldn't have come up with. Even a non hunter could enjoy the museum quality vignettes from every continent.
Then we went to the gun room. This would be Sarah Brady's Bunch's nightmare. Smiling men, women and children perusing rows and rows of every size, shape and caliber of firearms. It was in the used, moderately priced section when I saw one of the saddest scenes unfold. A couple that had to be in their seventies stood at the end of the aisle. The gentleman held a used rifle with the smile of a boy on his face. Perhaps it was a rifle he had longed for in his youth. Maybe a replacement for one sold earlier in life when financial need outweighed pursuits afield. He brought it to his bride for her approval with joyful expectation. She turned to him and with cold finality said "No! It's too expensive!" and stalked away. The beaten look on the old man's face as he lovingly put the rifle back in the rack was painful to watch. The man is in his seventies. I would assume he has raised kids and grand kids, paid mortgages, car payments and doctor's bills too numerable to remember. What could they be "saving" for? How many years does this man still have that would allow him to enjoy a day in the woods? If I had the money, I would have bought it for him just to see the look on the wife's face and to restore the smile on his.
Many people never make it to retirement. The sister I was visiting lost her husband to cancer at the age of 58. Saving and fiscal responsibility are important. So is enjoying life. Don't focus so intently on saving and scrimping for retirement that you neglect to enjoy the majority of your life. Take the vacation, don't work every Saturday, go fishing, book that hunt of a lifetime, buy that rifle.