The Clock Has Entered the Conversation

It is 1:42 am on a Thursday morning and I cannot sleep. The search feels harder now because getting older has made the need for answers more urgent. It is emotionally and physically draining most of the time, and chronic ailments and worries make the path even more challenging.

Some days I feel invigorated and others chronic discomfort drags me down. Mentally I am feeling stronger than I have in years yet emotionally I find myself ripped in all directions with feelings too intense to put into words.

The sleepless nights are more frequent – the sleep apnea fighter pilot mask doesn’t help. I do continue to exercise twice per week with a personal trainer and walk when I can, but it doesn’t appear enough. My weight fluctuates as does my appetite. The consistency of my youth is far in my rearview mirror as I hope – and still sometimes pray – that I make it to the fourth quarter and even into overtime.

This year has brought some encouraging health news. Tests show that my heart is strong, my kidneys remain cancer-free, and the surrounding areas, including my lungs, are clear. My liver also remains stable after thirty-two years of scarring. Scientific advances and the medicines they have produced reached me at just the right time. I am grateful.

When I look at those around me - especially my wife’s parents and my own - I often wonder how they manage it. How do they move through the later years of life without constantly thinking about when their time will come, or what, if anything, comes next?

What seems to sustain them each day - and keep them engaged with life - is their faith. For me, faith has been difficult at best and elusive at worst. Increasingly I question and search, and I receive no divine intervention much less answers.

I believe I am trying to articulate that the clock has entered the conversation. At twenty-five, questions about God, life after death, and the meaning of life can feel philosophical. At fifty-seven, after loss, cancer, chronic discomfort, and watching parents and in-laws grow older, those questions feel different. They are no longer abstract. Time matters more now.

If I received an unmistakable sign tonight, would the search finally end? And if no sign ever comes, could gratitude itself be enough - not as proof of God, but as a way to live without proof? I am beginning to understand that I may run out of time before I find the answers I am seeking. 

So how do I want to spend the time I have left? That becomes the ultimate question.

And I do not know what quarter of the game of life I am in – no one really does. Someone can be ninety-five and approaching the end while someone twenty-five can unknowingly have little time left. The clock has always been ticking – but now I can hear it clearly. And it is somewhat scary if I let it sit too long.

Gratitude has become my response to uncertainty. It may not be the answer I wanted, but it may be the answer I need. Instead of asking what happens after I die, I need to ask how I will live before I die. That is the question I still have the power to answer.

Peggy, our children, family, friends, and, of course, our dogs become more precious to me each day. I do not take that for granted. The weekend getaways, family dinners, long phone conversations, and even the back-and-forth text messages now carry a significance I could not have fully understood ten years ago.

Once again, it comes down to how we live, and the values that guide us: kindness, empathy, hope, faith - if it can be found - and, above all, love.

I am still searching. But perhaps the way to keep searching is to live in the present, surrounded by love, and to let that be enough for now.