It was the best of times...

I had a bit of a start the other day. I had a call from my brother in Florida telling me my Father was in the hospital for some "tests". Turns out his heart, which has been beating fiercely for nearly 70 years, has decided to take a rest every now and then. Probably he'll need a pace-maker, no big deal. No big deal, right, it gave me pause to think.

Over my life I've taken antibiotics, had inoculations (more than I care to remember courtesy of Uncle Sam), been in the hospital for stitches, an occasional kidney stone, etc. Even 80 years ago I might be dead instead of writing this. I know for a fact both my daughters and my wife, the central facets of my life, would be dead. Various infections, a blocked bowel requiring an emergency re-section, other things that we would take no notice of, polio, small pox, a plethora of deadlies would have stolen them from me, if not visa-versa.

People fantasize about simpler times. They can keep them. My Mother (god rest her) lost a brother, my Uncle, lost a son, my wife's paternal grandmother lost two children. Good old days, right. My father-in-law, a retired doctor, told the story of a patient who had come in complaining of shortness of breath, a check showed walking pneumonia, a quick prescription and poof! no more problem, 40 years earlier, it would have been a death sentence more than likely.

Perhaps we live in an age of information overload, where our lives are filled with stress and we run hither and yon after things our grandparents couldn't have conceived of. My Great grandmother, who passed away at 105 years of age, saw from wagon trains to space shuttles, all-in-all an incredible thing.

So many people seem to be longing for this age to end, whether it be through the "rapture" or whatever religious apocalyptic vision they have. They seem to fear how far we've come and how far we are likely to go. Many have forgotten history, how many-many times in the past the world has been a much more evil place than it is right now. Now we see the evil, in full color and sound, while before it could require generations for it to be seen.

I for one would not trade the current time for any I could think of in history. That we are standing on the brink of average life-times greater than 100 years is wonderful, maybe if we have longer lives we won't be so greedy with our time, maybe we will take the time to appreciate the good things instead of spending so much energy fleeing the bad. Maybe we will take the time to truly teach our children what they need to live, not just what they need to get by.

Anyway, just a few stray thoughts on this Friday in spring.