Old Enough.....

I remember when the first issue of our AARP monthly magazine showed up in the mail. It was a "show stopper" as I realized Dave and I had crossed another "bridge". We were old enough to read AARP and get some of the benefits of membership.

The magazine is now a familiar once-a-month find in our mailbox and I am often "amused" to see the smiling face of the "elder" on the cover.....a celebrity of some kind that has aged along with me. I don't usually read every page, but I do look through it to find articles or advice that seems interesting to me.

When March 2021 showed up I did give it more than my usual cursory attention. 

Hello!!! George Clooney!!! I have to admit he is one of my "heart throbs". I certainly don't know him but I've enjoyed his movies, I like what I read about his concern for the less fortunate, for our planet, I like the fact that he is married to an accomplished woman on her own right and seems to be enjoying his somewhat late-in-life fatherhood. I like that he says he's always cut his own hair with a Flowbee. I like that he seems to genuinely love his family and is a loyal friend to many. I like that he prefers a big round table for meals so that conversation is easy and no one is at the "end" of the long table. I like that he pulls practical jokes and seems to laugh easily. I love his big smile. He just seems like a really good guy who has not let Hollywood fame steer his ship.

And then I got to the end of the article (yes I read every word....some words more than once). George was talking about riding a scooter with a friend in Sardinia in 2018 and suffering an accident that could have killed him. People who witnessed his fall pulled out their cameras to take pictures.... no one immediately calling for help. (Sound familiar?)

That accident and his recovery time gave him pause and made him think more about his life and mortality and his family..... not an unexpected process. The part of the article that really made me stop and re-read was as follows: "I'm not a particularly religious guy. So I have to be skeptical about an afterlife.  But as you get older, you start thinking, Well wait a minute.....Once you're finished with this chassis that we're in, you're just done. My version of it is that you're taking that one one-hundredth of a pound of energy that disappears when you die and you're jamming it right into the hearts of all the other people you've been close to."

I love that image. Maybe because I've been thinking about "heart strings" for years..... strings that stretch from a person you love right to your heart, even after death. So my "heart strings" and George's  "energy" jamming into his loved ones hearts just seem to sort of compliment each other. When I die I hope my one one-hundredth of a pound of energy jams into hearts and my heartstrings reach out so that those I love will always "feel" me and know that they were "mine".