L       I       F       E   

isn’t   about   a   number   of    Candles

on   a   quick-to-go-stale

Birthday  Cake.       .       . 

.       .       .Maybe the best part of old age for anyone is that they can actually

A   T   T   A   I   N            I    T

There are Givens:

Death   is   the   Number   One   Killer   in   the   World.       .       .

Life   is   Sexually Transmitted and it’s
T E R M I N A L . . .

and   it   ENDS.         .         .

usually
just not as well as we’d like.       .       .

Great Health,
it turns out,
is merely the slowest possible rate
at which anyone can ever die.      .      .

But.         .         .

After some 804 months

3495 weeks and five days

24,472 Days on this spinning blue ball

587,328 hours

35,239,680 minutes

268,202,880 seconds,

I’ve learned a few lessons.         .         .

and the biggest one:

There’s    just    a    few    more    lessons    to    learn.       .       .

There was a recent survey taken in the UK that said the biggest fears men have growing older are:

94% fear going bald

89% fear becoming impotent

75% are worried about going grey

64% are scared of getting fat

61% fear losing their teeth

45% dread needing  ‘jam jar’ glasses

31% are scared of going deaf

24% are frightened of getting bad breath

100% of me is concerned that I wasted time.        .        .

that somehow,

I didn’t become all of  
M  E 

I regret little of what I’ve ever done.      .      .

even the not-so-good-kind-of-horrific-things

because they’ve all made up the tapestry of my life–
especially the dark, ugly colors;

It’s the strands of threads
that I didn’t allow to become a part of the mosaic.        .        .

to expand it

that taunts me;

It’s not the two-self published books,

it’s the yet-to-be published two novels,

five Children’s books,

three non-fiction books

four books of poetry

and the yet to be written ones

that fill stacks of notebooks and overflowing file folders.      .      .      .

I have no interest in spewing out the  
6 7
greatest things I’ve learned in my

 6 7   years.    .    .

I do believe that

R   e   l   a   t   i   o   n   s   h   i   p   s,   

not technology or medical advances,

Heals  me.      .      .

I do believe that  
 L O V I N G
is the greatest force in and out of this World

and when applied frequently and liberally
 Y O U
 not only Change.      .      .

The Universe does, too.          .          .

I do believe that the secret to long life is
simply never to let your heart stop beating    
or never passing up the opportunity
of making Another’s beat better.      .      .

I do believe that

Life is not counted by pages on a calendar
or minutes/seconds on a clock
or candles on a cake.      .      .
but  in

M      O      M      E      N      T      S

that can never be counted,
calculated,
measured
or
harnessed.       .       .

o n l y    r e m e m b e r e d

way past a pulse,
a heart beat,
a breath

or any other means of defining Life
that can’t be definite.      .      .      .

B          I          R          T          H          D          A          Y          S
are never what they’re cranked up to be
no matter how many you continue to collect
none of them mean a thing
until you make everyday between them mean
 E     V     E     R     Y     T     H     I     N     G

So.       .       .
about that cake.       .       .

I’ll pass.          .           .

but  WOW.       .       .

that piece of Pecan Pie
is looking mighty, mighty

f   i   n   e !

Join me.       .       .
we’ll call it a

Party.        .          .
a never-ending Celebration

.         .         .Candles are optional

The   Light   
is   Blinding

But, at my age
I’m not much thinking about Blinking
. . .I don’t want to miss a thing
and I can’t wait to see
not so much how many more
strands I can add to this
growing-by-the-second-older-
t a p e s t r y
so much as
the different
colors
textures
that’ll get me ever closer to being
c o m p l e t e d
. . .now 
ALL-WAYS
NOW
it’s time again 
to bring 
f           l           a           m           e
to
w     i     c     k