To think that today I enter my 64th year in this world. It didn’t look like I’d make it when I was born. They realized something was quite wrong when I kept throwing up any food they gave me, and apparently the crying was nonstop. I was slowly starving to death. After getting me over to Children’s Hospital in D.C., the doctors did surgery. They found the insides quite a jumble, and finally (almost miraculously back in 1960), located where a malformed intestine was folded over on itself, blocking any nutrition from being absorbed. My mom said they illustrated it with a folded washcloth that was at an angle rather than being straight. I wish I knew the name of the surgeon who found it, but whoever he was, he left a gaping slash down my belly but a functioning digestive system. I lived.
My mom never forgot that miracle and never wanted me to forget it. She sent me around the neighborhood each year to collect for Children’s Hospital. She reminded me: “You wouldn’t be here today without them.” I confess, introvert that I am, I DETESTED the task. Knocking on the doors of neighbors to ask for a donation was not at all a comfortable task. But mom taught me that comfort has nothing to do with it when it is the right thing to do. So off I went. She even told me that if anyone tried the old “I gave at the office” I was to politely correct them and tell them that Children’s wasn’t part of any other charity network (I assume that has long since changed).
So here I am, alive at 64. That’s five years older than my poor dad got to be. And it’s only 13 years shy of my mom’s age at death. Anyway you slice it, I’m looking down the last bit of my earthly pilgrimage. Which truly seems so weird. I still feel great most every day. It’s only when I look in the mirror at the wrinkles and the graying hair that I realize I’m not a kid anymore. I never stopped feeling like one!
Oh, there’s some arthritis in the hands, and opening things is not as easy as it used to be by a long shot. But I still walk almost every day upwards of five miles. I can do pullups and pushups. Physically, I’m still in pretty decent shape.
And there is no question that I have been blessed way, way beyond my deserving and even my imagining. A wife who has been the very image to me of God’s grace and mercy, and of whom I am not worthy. Three absolutely stellar children whom I am so proud of, and they each married the perfect spouse and I’m equally as proud of them. Best of all, they gave me my grandchildren: 13 of whom I’ve gotten to know and hold, and 2 of whom are in utero at the moment. At their birth I’ll have matched the number of my parent’s grandchildren! They, however, did that across 25 years and my children gave me these wondrous gifts in a mere 12.5 years.
What’s ahead? I still have three years (God willing) of writing and teaching for Lutheran Public Radio and doing a handful of conferences a year. But when I turn 67 I intend to turn that responsibility over to others. I’ll happily continue to serve as an assistant at St. Paul’s, and once I no longer have to write and record 6 podcasts and 1 Issues show a week, I could probably help out there more. If God spares me and I live to 67, I hope to take a solid three months off from any work and just work on things that I’ve wanted to do and not had the time to. My grandkids will range from 16 to 2.5 by then! They should keep me more than busy.
Thank you, God, for the doctors at Children’s in D.C. Thank you for my wonderful mom and dad and brothers and sisters. Thank you for my wife and all her family. Thank you for our children and grandchildren. Thank you for the opportunities you have granted this most unworthy servant. Thank you for the laughter, the cards, the feasts, the singing, and the lazy afternoons floating in the pool. Thank you for dear friends to travel and relax with. Thank you for all Your gifts! “Glory to You, O Lord, for all things!”
