The Captain of Geezerville

I have a birthday coming up this next Monday. I'll be fifty, my brother will be sixty, and my mom will be eighty, all within two weeks of one another. We plan to have a modest get together and enjoy each other's company. I haven't taken up too much time reflecting on what being 50 means to me, at least, I hadn't until this past week.

My pastor was teaching and was trying to make a point about going home to be with the Lord. He mentioned that he was two years away from fifty, and that once one hits fifty, one might as well be dead because life was over. (Laughing here) Of course he was saying this for the benefit of one of his associate pastors who was present. It was all in good fun.

Last weekend, I was at a surprise fiftieth birthday party for a high school friend. He was pretty gracious and I really enjoyed catching up with several people whom I hadn't seen in months or years. It seems that as I chatted with his parents, and looked around the room at parents of others I know, I realized that I have been in a sort of subconscious denial of the fact that they didn't have us "kids" when they were ten years old. They are in their seventies and eighties now.

The mother of the guy whose birthday it was came over to me and chatted with me for at least twenty minutes. I could not recall ever having so meaningful or so enjoyable a conversation with her in any year past. She is an absolutely sweet woman. Life seems awfully short. I'm fifty years old and I have known this woman for at least thirty-five of those years. Why we had not taken the time to speak like that before, I can't really say. I was over at her house quite often when I was growing up. Perhaps I wasn't interesting enough. (Laughing here.)

I'm rambling a bit here, but it's almost two a.m. and I'm a bit rummy. I guess what I'm taking notice of, is the number of really wonderful people who have been a part of my life in one way or another. In fifty years of living, I can't remember all of the people who have impacted my life, even in important ways. I've started to lose sight of some of the faces of people I knew, but haven't seen from my teen years.

It would be nice to say that I remember them all, but I can't. What I can say is that I'm grateful for these people, and for the way that God has placed them on the path of my life. Oh, there are also some people of course that I would like to forget, but I guess in a strange way I'm thankful for those folks too. It's awfully marvelous, how the hand of the Lord works.