Getting Older — Better?
How does it feel to know you aren’t immortal? You have to admit when people like Patrick Swayze and Farrah Fawcett pass away, it kind of leaves a hole and with a feeling of impending doom. Really now, if they can expire — anyone can. They were larger than life. The kind of people who take up all the space in the room.
I saw a picture of Patrick on the cover of a rag at the checkout stand the day before he passed away. If he’d have ran me over with his wheelchair I wouldn’t have recognized him. How hard it must have been for him to accept his circumstance after being so vital and full of life.
I was young and beautiful once, with my entire life ahead of me. When did everything change and I ceased to be young? It’s like I woke up one day and I had went away and left this old person in my place.
In some ways it can be very liberating. Clerks no longer card me to purchase cigarettes, I’ve even occasionally been bestowed with the coveted “Senior Citizen Discount.” Wow!
However, there are some wonderful advantages to pressing 50. A person of advanced years is free to speak his or her mind 99% of the time. They are likely to be married or even widowed at this stage in their life — they have nothing to gain by beating around the bush.
Heck, who has time to beat around the bush? Life is flying by at the speed of sound. Do you remember when you were a child and 16 seemed like a million years away — it couldn’t get here fast enough. Today, if you blink it’s tomorrow and the memory of yesterday is fading fast.
I don’t know if it’s just me or not but when stars like Patrick and Farrah die of diseases such as: cancer, leukemia, and multiple sclerosis it is no small thing. Perhaps, it’s because they are so famous that the possiblity of getting a fatal disease strikes just a bit harder. Maybe individuals who work in Hollywood are working under poor conditions? Are they exposed to more pollution and hazardous materials than the average Joe? Or is it just the luck of the draw?
I don’t know the answers but I sure am curious.
I would hate to think we were loving these people to death. If working in the movie industry is responsible for stars dying from chemical exposure — we are paying to have them killed. That’s a hard pill to swallow.
On the other hand, they are in an aggressive business, they should know what the risks are and this is America, if hollywood stars want to risk their own health in return for a few bucks — who are we to stop them? After all, God gave us free will. Doesn’t it strike you as a little odd that God grants people free will, but our government tries to grant us less?
Free will comes with responsibility to live with the natural consequences of our own actions. As my sister is so fond of saying, “Put your big girl panties on…” I can never remember how that ends, but you get the picture.