1. January 2012 by admin.

This is my first blog and I’m hoping and planning that each month I will have a new one on a different topic. This topic is about dying or maybe better said - living. I hope you read it and the others that follow, finding them interesting and worthwhile. Your comments would be most appreciated either way.

We are all well aware that we are going to die. That is the basic reality of each of our lives. Yet from a psychological point of view we are still unwilling to accept this inevitability. While most of us say they are not afraid of dying, I think most of us are. Personally, at my age, I can see the clock ticking away. I hope I have many years to enjoy all the things that I have done in my life and the challenges that I have yet to face. I take into consideration the ages of my parents and relatives when they passed, do the simple math and calculate the number of years that I have left.

There are a number of things that make me feel old. Seeing grandchildren finishing high school and college and coming to the realization that my children are now in their 40s. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was in my 40s so how can it be that I have children in their 40s already. I now have a granddaughter who has just turned 21, and may soon be starting a family of her own. That could make me a great-grandfather! Yuck! I remember my great-grandmother, who was in her 90s, as a frail, bent over, gray-haired woman. At my age, I still feel somewhat vibrant and in good health and I am expecting, barring any unforeseen circumstances, a good 20 or 30 years more.

So what do I have to be afraid of? I’ve led a good life, done many things, including traveling and seeing a lot of this country and the world. I don’t think my life, compared to others, has been that unique. So I can say with a great deal of honesty that I have led, I think, a full and interesting life and that meeting my maker should not be a major disappointment. But at the same time, like most of us, I’m not ready to knock on that door; in fact, I’m more likely to go kicking and screaming all the way.

So what does this all have to do with what I’m calling The Mortality Affect? I firmly believe that I am capable of extending my life force well beyond my physical being. I am defining my life force as the essence of who I am. A way I can extend this life force is to share who I am with the generations who literally do not know me. Sharing of one’s life with those yet to come is the best way to prolong who you are. The telling of your life stories on video lets those who are yet to come hear our voice, see into our eyes, hear our laughter, see our smile and hear the wisdom of our existence.

When I meet people and tell them what I do, almost universally they tell me what a great idea this is. And when I suggest they tell their life stories, there seems to be a reluctance to do so. Now could it be that some people feel their stories would be of no interest to those following or the reminiscing of our past may not be all that pleasant and we do not want to share those unhappy times with the future? While all this may be true, I believe that telling your life stories seems to make the clock on the wall really apparent. In other words, it’s their mortality that comes to the forefront. But I look at it as a way to extend my life.

Someone asked me if I could name my eight great-grandparents. Even though, as I said earlier, I remember a great-grandmother, I don’t remember her name. And there’s no one left in my family who would know. So here I am, faced with the same reality as my great-grandmother. Someday I will be someone’s great-grandfather and they will have no idea who I am. I could be totally forgotten. I will then, at that point, be truly dead! But if I ensure that my legacy is passed down to them, I will continue to live. 

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12. May 2011 by admin.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

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