I’m visiting my grandmother today. She recently turned 92. She is also in the hospital right now. The stubborn woman is recuperating from a bout of pneumonia.

As much as I don’t want to admit it, her time is limited. Not that she is going to die tomorrow, in truth we all could, but in that her general vitality has been diminishing over these past few decades and its never a pleasant thing to see. My grandfather, her husband, was 80 when he passed on. He had been moving cords of wood in his backyard and paused to sit down to catch his breath. He then tumbled over and was gone within a few heartbeats.

The man knew how to go.

Watching my grandmother decline is but a cruel reminder that life is precious and that everything can be taken away just like that. Like when you sit down to catch your breath and find out it’s your last.

1 year and two days ago my mother-in-law passed away. She had been fighting Parkinson’s for close to twenty years and her passing was intense. Her death throws began around midnight and lasted up until the sun rose the next day. I wasn’t there as I was tending to our kids but my wife was, and the best way to describe it would be haunting.

Getting robbed of your life, minute by minute or breath by breath, sounds cruel yet we all endure through it.

I enjoy ‘living’ but at what point does your existence transfer from that to merely ‘existing’?

What control do you really have?

None.

Getting in the car and driving to see her is a gamble in of itself. Just eating or even defecating is a gamble.

I love my wife and kids and want to enjoy each and every day with them even though they drive me crazy.

93?