The Will to Live: How it Changes with Age

When I was in my teens and twenties, the fact of my ultimate death really disturbed me.  I would have sudden flashes of horror, thinking "I'm going to die!  I'm mortal!  It isn't fair!"  I remember taking night courses at West Valley College in Campbell, California, drinking vending machine coffee at the break, and suddenly feeling the horror:  "I'm going to die!"  Death might be sixty years in the future, but that just wasn't long enough.  I wanted to live forever.

Now I am in my sixties and death no longer holds the dread it once did.  I realize that I don't want to live forever.  After six decades on the earth, I feel a bit jaded.  I have had my share of joys, sorrows, hopes and disappointments.  There were birthday cakes and graduations and weddings and children along life's path.  Much of life now seems a case of "been there, done that."

So many of the people I loved have moved on to the next world.  My father and mother, my uncles and aunts, my grandparents, as well as many beloved pets.  I often get the feeling that I need to follow them and find them once again.  If they can die, so can I.

However, if you give me a chest full of fine cigars, a few cases of good wheat beer, some jazz to listen to and a string bass to play, well then,  I can probably hang around a bit longer.  When the dark angel finally does come, though, I won't argue.  There's a time for everything.