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The hardest for me has been watching friends and family members get sick and die before their times. Lost a very close friend (Thanksgiving with our two families for 20 years) to cancer. He was 55. Another is 20+ years into remission for cancer, but the radiation they used to kill it is now killing him. My 55 y.o. little cousin--like a brother--killed in a motorcycle accident. Another very close friend has had a long-term lung disease (berylliosis) caused by machining nuke weapons cores. He looks like a skeleton and wheezes. The drummer from my old band, whom I recently reconnected with, has Parkinson's, which is horrible. He just had some sort of surgery to place electrodes in his brain. Creepy and scary.
Next to these horrors, I feel guilty complaining. My corpse has become a combined arthritis hotel and orthopedic surgeon training device: both knees replaced, 5 shoulder surgeries, and progressive hand problems. A day in the garage working on mechanical stuff makes my hands swell up like catchers mitts. My unplayed guitars stare at me in reproof, but a few minutes and my hands start drowning out the Marshall.
But I still have tons of stuff I want to do, and ton of things I want to learn. That blessing, combined with my incredible family, makes me a lucky man.
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