Smiling

I talk a lot about how long my people live and how long I expect to live. I'm sure you know it's not that I think it's impossible that I might be hit by a bus or felled by some weird flu or whatever. I've had people die unexpectedly but more often I've seen people go slowly. Sometimes very slowly. So I think more about that because there are things about that you can control or, at the very least, beware of.

I don't exactly look forward to being old. It's the alternative I'm not wild about, as they say. I know there will be physical aches and pains and psychological ones, too. I'm not excited by the prospect, of course, but I think those can be dealt with. There's only one thing I'm really afraid of.

I don't want to get bitter.

I'm sharp already. I'm heavy on the sarcasm and lean toward the cutting joke. I'm good at it and most of the time it's funny. There will come a time, to be sure, when it's not, though. And I don't want to be so nasty and discontented that it's all anyone remembers of me. I don't want them to have to dig to recall the last time I laughed and laughed with them.

One of my darker jokes has always been that when (not if, when) I get the diabetes you should just put a pillow over my face. I love my sugar and my carbs. I love them dearly and I will be miserable without them. I'll probably learn to live without but I'll always miss them.

What I really should make you promise, though, is that if you ever see me going over to the bitter side, if you ever get to a point where you can't remember me laughing, really laughing, that's when you should slip me an extra dose of my arthritis meds. Maybe two.

Remember me smiling.