Young At Heart

Traveling the world, every continent, peeking into every culture, I have found that only in America are the old people so unappreciated. I say old because I am old, and no matter how young you are, if you keep living, you too will get old...7000 baby boomers turn age 65 every day of this year.

When young, always running up steps two at a time, always energetic, I never thought I would reach the place that I would look and act like my grandparents, but I did and I have. Knowing their hard lives I am amazed that they lived as long as they did and accomplished so much. From the time I was a youth, I was so offended by the open casket...people walking by, staring at the dead. There are funeral homes, such as one black funeral home close by, with a drive-up viewing window. Can you even imagine anything so uncivilized?

Some of the dumbest words ever spoken: “age is just a number.” There is no need for geriatric depression thinking about age. Relax, enjoy getting older, enjoy not having to impress anyone, enjoying knowing that you have run the race, that the goalpost is in sight.

One of the most genteel ladies I ever knew owned an office building next to one I owned. Once, while discussing something, I told her that if she ever decided to sell, to give me first chance at her building. One night she called and told me, “I have pancreatic cancer. I am ready for you to buy my building. My boys do not want to look after it, they just want to move back up north.” We agreed on a price and the entire subject was closed, except for the lawyers. She said, “I am not stupid enough to prolong a certain thing with expensive, debilitating treatment.”...And, in a few weeks it was all over.

We all age at the same rate, whether you are sixteen or ninety-six. If you are 85, you have a 50% chance of going into a nursing home. If you are female, you have 2 ½ times the chance of becoming disabled. Your chance of Alzheimer's doubles every year after 65...

When I was in school just 60 years ago, diabetes was a practically unknown disease, cancer was very rare, and we were embarrassed to even discuss abortion. Just think of how the vocabulary has changed, now ½ the population is diabetic and/or overweight, body starving from lack of real nutrition. We have the cancer epidemic because every food must be sweetened, and cancer thrives in sweetness. Alzheimer's was unknown 50 years ago, some older people had what we called “senile dementia”. With the onslaught of artificial sweeteners, aspartame, et cetera, the brain and its neurology has been overtaken by poison.

Old people learned to not take antibiotics for “every little thing”. When the country of Norway rid itself of antibiotics, the country's people became much healthier. How much penicillin could have been used in warfare and everywhere else, but with the chase for instant relief, instant cure, fast everything, our immune system has been depleted. There is no reason why people should be sick, sickness is usually a matter of calories and chemicals.

Eventually, all bodies wear out, just go with it. I so well remember what one of the preachers said at my father's funeral, “he was just worn out.” It is all a matter of genes, you can look at your ancestors and determine very accurately not only how you will look, but how you will feel. Keep photographs of you and your family all around, showing how you looked when you were young. Please remember to write names and dates on the backs of photographs, the time will come when no one will remember the people in the photographs. Some of your grandchildren may want to know from whom they got their facial characteristics, your future progeny will be interested in their ancestors.

I have often said to young men who I got to know well enough so I could say it, “you young guys think you are so great, I have photographs showing I was much better looking than you at your age, plus I was smart.” Don't harden your appearance with cold, dyed hair... your wrinkles which you have earned, your saggy-ness which you have earned. Turning gray is natural, don't fool yourself into thinking only your hairdresser knows, the same with plastic surgery, even the skilled scalpel cannot make the 70 year old look 40.

During colonial times, age was considered wealth...just to have survived the hardship of colonial life. At public meetings, the elderly were seated in the front rows, always recognized as being the jewels of the colonies. After the Revolution, the wealthy were seated in the front rows, and the elderly behind them.

I participated in the funeral of the first graduate of North Carolina State University. In speaking with some of the officials, particularly an aged pastor, I said, “when you bury a 100 year-old man like you are burying today, one of the finest men any of us have known, don't you feel like you are putting a library in the ground.” Lincoln said that death is inevitable for all of us, for some death comes too quickly.

I worked hard for my education, my degrees, my military ranks. I die, depending entirely on the mercies of God, His grace through faith. I will be buried near my marvelous parents, just my name on the marker and these words, “because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.” (Psalm 63:3)

Weeds, Bugs, Disease

My parents owned one of the finest farms in the county. Handed down from ancestors, a large house which had survived the civil war, white fences, animals in the pastures, crops and fruit trees.

It was such hard work, I could hardly wait to leave, to get into a community of excitement, educational awareness, worldliness. Now, having seen all the world has to offer, I would like to be back there, on the farm---fresh water from a hand pump, fresh eggs from laying hens, a place to grow fresh vegetables, fresh meats.

On the farm, there were always weeds, bugs and disease trying to take over the crops. After long years of schooling, long hours of hard work, I became a doctor and found that disease is trying to take over the world. Now, disabled, working with technology, I find that viruses (disease) are trying to take over the world.

The world started out perfect, God put Adam and Eve in a perfect garden with just one rule, one law, one commandment: they could not eat the fruit from one tree. Given the greatest gift of all, free will, men could not obey one rule and so came imperfection, disease, weeds, bugs.

Traveling the world, learning the reasons for why people do what they do. I have found that most blame God for their problems. Oh, if all of us could have been born “white, wealthy and wise.” So many people of color have told me that it is the color of their skin that has kept them from achievement on the uneven playing field. People with disabilities have told me that it is their disability that has kept them from performing on the uneven playing field.

I have found that the people who have accomplished the most, usually had to overcome the most...poverty, unattractiveness. So many times, these people had not thought they were chosen by God to do great things. While traveling every continent of the world, I have never found a perfect person, most of us have a neurosis, psychosis, disability of some type. The problem: we usually seek help from someone in worse shape than us, a sociopath, a psychopath. We do not need someone to give us an excuse. The Designer, the One who wrote the manufacturer's handbook (Bible), has given us all the instructions we need.

Life is a matter of sowing and reaping---you reap what you sow. But, you are not stuck where you start, and your character determines your destination. I have found that it is not just the military which carry around excess baggage, external and internal wounds, hidden desperation, struggling in silence. Many find relief from their struggles in addictions...alcohol, illegal drugs, overeating, overspending, sexual promiscuity, societal clashes. In combat, you learn to depend on one another, you watch each other's backs, you pray constantly for one another. The answer for the church, for Christianity; in fact, the answer for any religion, political philosophy: if you are really convinced, convicted, committed, act as if in combat.

I have encountered brokenness many times in my life, not just me, but others. As a totally blind, 100% disabled veteran, I prayed for my restoration; convinced, as I am right now, that God, in his infinite mercy and love, could do anything, even restore my eyesight. I remember the day that my specialist said to me, “Doctor, your eyes are totally gone.” I remember the hopelessness in death, the death of a patient, the death of a parent. Hopelessness is the message of the enemy. Christ forever cured our hopelessness and helplessness by telling us He would never leave, nor forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5)

Long ago, in another life, one of the most remarkable secretaries I ever employed, Jennifer, had won all the secretarial awards at the Pentagon. In the Washington DC cocktail party scene, it all starts with the first drink, and alcohol had enslaved her. When sober, she was the most competent person I had ever been around; under the haze of drugs (and alcohol is a drug), she was totally incompetent, had all the problems of the alcoholic. She had totally alienated herself from her grown children. On the day of my mother's death, I was so aggravated by her alcoholic stupor, (God forgive me) I thought “why lose my mother to cancer, who lived such a clean life; while others have dared their bodies to cave from their addictive living.”

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh (Matthew 12:34, Luke 6:45). The tares have taken over the church, corruption has taken over government, greed has taken over the banking and financial institutions. On every hand, hypocrisy and outright sinfulness seems to prosper. What do you say to someone who has tried to live right, dependent on the mercy of God, and yet sees the wicked prosper. God told us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. The apostle Peter told us that our troubles and trials are more precious than gold. (1 Peter 1:7)

If all believers in God prospered in this world, if all Christians were blessed in this world, it would be difficult to find an atheist. If unbelievers were the only ones experiencing deprivation of any type, everyone would board the heavenly express. Remember the apostle Paul's great message to the church: rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. (Philippians 4:4)