I had an uncle who lived well into his 90s. He was healthy as a horse up to the end. He went out golfing three weeks before he died. He was the happiest, most optimistic man I’ve ever met.
But his life wasn’t trouble-free. At one point in his senior years, doctors opened up his skull and did some sort of brain operation, I can’t remember the details of. He survived it and carried on. But on both sides of his forehead, there were two big indentations associated with the operation. The skin grew over them but it was noticeable that there appeared to be two holes in his forehead, one on the left and one on the right.
I first saw him, following the operation, at a funeral. Of course he noticed that everyone who greeted him was stealing a furtive glance at the new prominent features on his head. So, rather than launch into a lengthy explanation, he put people at ease with this little quip: “That’s where they took the horns off,” he laughed. And so did everyone else.
If there was someone, somewhere who didn’t love him, I never met that person.
His wife, my aunt, was in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s disease, so he taught himself to cook. And in his early 90s, invested in a whole new set of pots and pans.
A better example of living life to the fullest I have never known of.
©2013 Hagarty
