Two Deaths This Week

Well, it’s happened again. I don't like being morbid, but two people I know, near my own age, have died within a few days of each other. It sure does make one think.

One of them, Con Ray Dotson, was just a year younger than I am. We were in the high school band together, he played trombone, I played trumpet. I haven’t had any contact with Con Ray for a long, long time. It may have been as long as since I graduated in 1963. So I haven’t been close to him. He had moved to a town an hour or so away from here. His obit was in the local paper. Fifty-nine years old: far too young.

The second was a guy who was 55. His name was Dickie Sowers. I didn’t go to school with Dickie, but I knew him. He ran a local business for several years. He was, like Con Ray, a good guy. Dickie’s sister, Susan, was a schoolmate and, more recently, lived across the street from me until we moved in 2001. Dickie had a stroke when he was 49. He never really recovered. He died of a heart attack four days shy of his 56th birthday.

My wife and I went to the visitation tonight. I met his wife and two teenage children for the first time. What a blow to them.

Personally, I’ve set 120 as my goal. I’ve got conflicting genetic information on that score. My dad and his older brother died at about the same age: 67. Their father died about that same age. However, my great grandfather lived to 92, and his other son, my great uncle, made it to 88. My great aunt was well into her 80s when she passed. My Dad’s younger brothers are now nearly 85 and (the twins) nearly 80, and doing fine.

My grandmother, however, is the champion. She lived to 106 years. Marcie claimed that she lived so long by staying away from doctors. She told the doctors that, too, when she absolutely had to see one. She had no health problems, aside from the occasional cold and five babies, until she was 86, when she had her gall bladder removed. After that, a fall resulted in surgery on her shoulder. That’s it. In 106 years she had two health problems (not counting her five sons) requiring serious attention.

So, who knows what will happen to me, and when? It really doesn’t make any sense to dwell on that. It does make sense to take care of yourself, if you can discern from the conflicting medical advice floating around these days exactly what really makes some difference in your health.

To all of you, I say: “Good health; much happiness; and to live as long as you want to.”