My birthday. I am blessed with miracles

 

Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

 

I turned 76 yesterday. 76?  SEVENTY SIX?  

Not only do I not really want to be in my seventies, but now I am on the downside of my 70s.  Closer to 80 than to 70, as Vicky just pointed out.  :)

There.  I said it.  It's supposed to be awful--being an old guy who is close to 80.  

But that's not really how I feel.  

Instead, I feel my life is a miracle.  And turning 76, being alive and thinking and wishing and hurting and loving for 76 years, is nothing short of a miracle.

There are really only two outcomes for life.  One is growing old, and the other is not growing old.

I have experienced three major episodes in my life where the outcome is nothing short of miraculous.

One was finding out I had a heart problem, about 8 years go, because a Urology P.A. did something he was "not supposed to do."  After doing his urology thing, he gave me a mini-physical.  He said I had a heart murmur.  Subsequent to this visit with him I had two primary physicians.  I asked both if they could hear the murmur and both examined me and said no.  I tracked down my Urology P.A. last year to thank him.  It was clear that it meant the world to him to hear this. 

So, I went to a Cardiologist, and 2 years later had open heart surgery.  Two days before my surgery I had an angiogram, where a doctor actually looked at my heart.  He came running into the room, very animated, telling us that my ascending aorta could burst at any second.  I mentioned that I had no symptoms.  He said my first symptom would be to die.  When I informed him about my upcoming open heart surgery, he emphatically said:  "Good!"

The cardiologist who had been following me had brought up the idea of having the surgery.  She presented all of the arguments for and against having it now or waiting for 6 months.   So I said to her:  "If I was your father and he had the same situation, what would you tell him?"  With not even a moment's hesitation, she said "Have the operation!"

Without the good fortune of...having chronic prostate problems....I would never have known there was anything wrong with my heart, and would have died.    How many people get to thank their prostate gland for keeping them from dying?  (seems kind of unfair to women who don't have a prostate gland, doesn't it?).

Is that a miracle or what?

My second miracle was a few years later being diagnosed with prostate cancer.  Why would that be a miracle?  Sounds awful, doesn't it?  

Yes, but I had the miracle of being diagnosed early, and had the miracle of treatments that give me a good chance of beating it.  So far I am looking good, but I can't predict the future. 

I guess I have an unusual relationship with my prostate gland.  First, it saved my life, and then it turns around and tries to kill me.  

My next miracle was having Vicky be there to give me CPR when, out of nowhere, I had a heart attack.  I could have been out in the garage, or she could have been in the shower and not seen me lose consciousness and stop breathing. 

And now I am getting all kinds of miraculous medicines to fix my heart in a way that I can eke out a few more years (Vicky says now I can fulfill my promise to live to 93 instead of "eking" out a few more years). 

But as awesome as those miracles are, they don't compare to my biggest and most profound miracle.  Which is life itself.

I have been able to think, feel, worry, get hurt, get excited, having rewarding experiences, etc. etc. for 76 years.  How did we ever evolve to be able to be conscious of our lives, instead of just stopping our evolution when we developed enough to get food and shelter, like other animals?

And that isn't all that is miraculous about life.  The main thing is the miracle of feeling love for so many people. 

I have so many people that I love and have loved.  What a mind-boggling thing:  I have had 76 years of loving people.  My children, my grandchildren, my sister, my niece, my nephews, my friends, and, of course, my Vicky, my wife.  My parents are gone now, and I miss them every day---I thank God for my broken heart.

That really came home to me in a blast yesterday on my birthday.

Vicky and I woke up early, and took a bike ride in the dark.  What we have done probably 200+ times before.  We only went an hour instead of our usual two hours because we were wanting to be gradual and careful about getting back to our old lives after my heart attack.  We did a bit of riding on the golf cart paths, which is our favorite, just to test how I found that to be.  I was steady.  

I want to make sure something I said is not lost:  "Vicky and I" woke up early.  I have the miracle of her.  She wants to wake up with me, and I want to wake up with her, and that feeling has not been lost since the beginning of our 13-year marriage.  

Then I had a breakfast for the ages:  Bacon, eggs, and home-made biscuits.  All of the degenerate stuff one shouldn't eat all of the time.  What a miracle that we can just go to the grocery store and get food to nourish ourselves.

Then, after I gorged myself, we danced to our old favorites (+1).  We have songs that reflect our lives....starting with the New Christie Minstrels song from the early 1960s called Today. We have a song representing our cabin (Rippling Waters by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band from the early 1980s "Tall Pine trees pointing us easily to heaven above....").  A song representing our cycling (Les Bicyclettes de Belsize, 1968, Englebert Humperdink) and so on.

I added one song to the dance list that we had never danced to, but it fit with our day.  It's called Thee I Love, sung by Pat Boone in 1956 for the wonderful film Friendly Persuasion.  

It was kind of difficult to dance to, but I wanted it for my birthday.  Here it is:  Thee I Love.

Then we had my birthday dinner.  My wife went to a ton of effort to give me my favorite all-time meal, which is my mother's home-made noodles.  For Vicky, it's not a "ton of effort" because she loves doing it.  Instead, it is a ton of fun.  To her it is a gift of love that she gives to me.

I had her noddles with mashed potatoes, gravy, and roast beef.  

If there is a heaven, I want what Vicky made for me as my first meal there.

 

Here's my meal:

 

And then we heard from family.  In the early morning Sebastian sent me a text:

 

 I got a call from Owen, Mila, Hannah, and Vernon:

And from Stella and Marina:

And from Sebastian and Soren:

And from Emily, who I couldn't talk with because I was already on another call.  She's going to call me today.  (update, we had a great call with her). 

 

I got a really nice message from Rachelle, Ryan, Alden, Wilder, and Ida.  Really sweet.

 

Got a very nice card from Jessica:

 

 

 

Kathy, my only sibling, who I and we are very close to, sent the most fun card and sent a message too.  Here's a photo of part of the card.

 

 

I also got birthday cards from old friends.  Here is what Jules sent me, clearly picked out by him to apply to Vicky and my lives.  When he retires, I want the same for him:

 

 

Also, in terms of miracles, I felt my mom and dad's spirits with me.  I was so fortunate to have them as parents.  Two times when they were still alive I spent hours telling them all about what they did for me and how they affected my life.  If you haven't done that, I strongly recommend it.  

 

One year I sent them this small note.  It obviously meant a lot to them because we found it in their stuff we went through when they both died.  

 

Then I opened gifts.  I'm glad I got up early to have time for this.  Vicky got me so much stuff because she was so happy.   In fact, I'm writing this the day after my birthday, and she's STILL BUYING ME GIFTS---two of them today. 

 

The moral of this story is if you are going to have a heart attack, get one before, not after, your birthday.  You'll clean up that way.

 

I'll show some of them.

 

One was this old 1948 (the year I was born) postcard which she found a terrific frame for.  She knows how much I have always loved cowboy films (I went to dozens and dozens with my father--one of my best memories) and how often I played cowboy as a young boy in Oklahoma:

 

 

She had also got me a new "watch," which I got to use a few days before my birthday.  It is one of those fancy instruments that monitors your steps, exercise time, etc., but of most importance to us is heart rate.    We have used it a LOT to monitor how my heart is doing. 

 

Now, this next gift looks kind of "What?" unless you know the backstory.  We already have two smaller ones, but was missing the largest one.  It a flour container from the late 40s.  Vicky found it in a collectibles store in Pine where our cabin is.

Why would I be so excited about this?  And why was Vicky so excited about finding it?

 

It's because my mother had these back in 1950, and probably earlier.  This is from a home movie my father took in 1950:

 

 

Then inside this old flour pan she had put a large number of Carson, Iowa old (OLD) collectibles, including coins good for merchandise in Carson stores, post cards, advertising ashtrays, photos, etc.  

Carson, Iowa, is where my father was born and raised.  We visited there a lot in my childhood, and beyond.  My parents are buried there.    My dear Aunt Hope and Uncle Wayne lived there----together for over 65 years.  It is a place we keep going back to--Vicky and I have been there two times in the past 10 years.  We want to go back again.

In the early 1900s it was a bustling community, filled with different businesses, including car dealerships, a mill, banks, grocery stores,  etc.  Now, it is sort of dead---none of that feeling of a real community is still there.  It has probably happened all over our country to thousands of small towns.  Now all of the "action" is in big cities.  One of the things we like about Pine, where our cabin is located, is that there still is that feeling of a bustling, "alive," small community.

I want to show you one of the items she got me.  It is a calendar from 1901--from a Drugstore in Carson.

 

 Look at what it says in the first paragraph of the first page:

It is an ode to the spirit of the times about how people could feel strongly about politics, but accept the results of a Presidential election effortlessly.  And how that "speaks in high praise of the American people."

Do you think we could purchase a few thousand of these old 1901 calendars and send them to some people we all know?   Maybe this kind of "spirit" is something I was subconsciously responding to as a child when I first fell in love with this small town of 600 people.

 

Because we always dress in the same shirts and sweaters, Vicky got us two new Arizona Trail shirts.  (actually she got four of them because two of them will live at the cabin).  These shirts are so beautiful and, when we are hiking, are visible to hunters---a consideration that we keep in mind at all times.

 

 

In addition, and this is really cool, she got me four old Hashknife Pony Express pins.  The Hashknife Pony Express goes through Pine.  You can read about it here:  Hashknife Pony Express.  It's totally cool that this tradition is alive.  They actually deliver mail each year. 

And a new bottle of wine and wine glass called Cranberry Glass (a favorite of mine).  The wine is from Horse Heaven Hills where we went with Jules on bike rides.  We have asked several physicians about their opinions on alcohol, and have received no consistent responses.  So, we have decided on a glass a day.   

Here am I with today's glass:

And three wonderful, and loving birthday cards.  They are in the photo below she took of my cards and gifts:  You can also see how we use a wide variety of wrapping paper for gifts we give to each other----my favorite this year was Bridal Shower wrapping paper.

She went to so much effort.  Her experience three weeks ago was life-altering for her.  The idea of losing me is more than she can bear.  

I also got two interesting books from the Borja/Graybills.  Sebastian said his mom helped him pick them out.  I've started reading both of them.  They are basically true stories of people about the positives in their lives.  

 

Emily knows that Vicky and I have hidden ourselves from the ugliness in our culture of too many people choosing sides in the culture wars.  As I said earlier, it is the miracle of life itself that should carry the day instead of denying that miracle in order to be angry and in order to be a part of a group that is based upon what one is angry about.  

 

Then came the deserts!!!!!   Instead of cake I had request a pecan pie, and that's what I got:

Then we went to bed and...........Okay I'll say it......I had another desert.  Her home-made pumpkin pie with ice cream.   Hey!  "It's my birthday and I'll cry pie if I want to"

How can a person who could have easily died three weeks ago, who is fighting cancer, who is riddled with arthritis, and who is an old geezer at age 76 believe that all of life is a miracle?  

Because it is.  Einstein was right.  He must have been a very smart guy.