I grow old

Last year, I turned 50. I travelled a bit, walked a lot, ate even more. It was a good year.

This year, I turned 51. My father died, my mother is in a nursing home, my dog is going through chemo, my eye got lasered for a torn retina.

Last year, I caught up with my junior college cohort. We were all ageing well.

This week, I got news that the younger brother of one of the guys is in an induced coma, possibly brain dead, after a fall in the gym fractured his cranium. I remember him, we were friendly, the older brother was dating a friend of mine. They later got married. And now, the children are grown.

When you meet people when you're 16, you never think what you're going to be in 10 years, who you're going to marry, how many children you're going to have, how you are going to die. And now, all I can think of is how the years have gone by, and how a family is wondering why daddy isn't home from the gym.