On Borrowed Time

I got another one of those Power Point slide show presentations this week that gave advice to senior citizens on how to enjoy the autumn of their lives. I read it, even though I’ve seen the same or similar messages many times. And I once again mentally nodded in agreement with the message.

We all live on borrowed time, but it becomes clearer and shorter as we get into our 60s and 70s. Myself, I’ve been on borrowed time for over thirty years. I was diagnosed with coronary artery disease in September of 1980. My cardiologist scheduled me for a coronary bypass, which he performed in October of that year. That was the beginning of a long line of hospitalizations and procedures for me.

I had a massive coronary infarction (heart attack) while staying at a hotel in Frederick, Maryland on the day after Christmas in 2005. I was transported by ambulance to a local hospital and then by helicopter to Washington Medical Center, where a team preformed a balloon angioplasty. I suspect that I “died” several times that night, but they brought me back.

I could trace my “borrowed timeline” even further back to 1941, when I was two-years-old. At that time, I was down for a nap in my second floor bedroom, but I stood up in my crib and somehow wound up falling out of the window, landing headfirst on the concrete driveway below.

I suffered a fractured skull, and the doctor who treated me in the hospital said that the only thing that saved my life was the window screen. I landed on that screen and apparently that narrow cushion of air was enough to break my fall before I hit the pavement.

There are probably not very many people who can recount the times they were at the brink of death and were brought back to enjoy many more years of quality life. For me, I don’t recall that early incident—we seem to lose most memories prior to age five—but I can remember in detail the two other times when I was a heartbeat away from eternity.

When the Jehovah’s Witnesses come to my door and ask if I’ve been born again, I can honestly say, “Yes, I have.” It has a different meaning from what they infer, but it does shorten the conversation.

One thing my experiences have sharpened is my appreciation for doing whatever I can do. Call it my bucket list if you want—I borrowed that from the recent movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan freeman--but I try to experience lots of what I love, and one of those is travel.

I don’t mind telling you that when I took my solo trip across America to Seattle and back last year, I fully expected it to be my last trip. Because of that attitude, I really worked as many places and sights into the itinerary as I could. In the fifteen days I was on the road, I visited about 40 places, and it was a tremendously rewarding trip.

Since that trip in June of 2009, I’ve taken five more trips. The last one this past week, when my wife and I went to Chattanooga to finally see the attractions that we had seen advertised on barns and billboards most of our lives—Rock City and Ruby Falls. (They were both worth the trip and the admission fees, as was the third one, the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway)

Most of you have been able to vicariously share my travels by way of my daily journals, and I will probably continue to write and send them out. However, I want to encourage you to get out there and make your own bucket list.. As I said at the outset, we are all on borrowed time, so whatever it is that “floats your boat” by all means do it!