...We one get one shot at this go around on Earth, so I've always wanted to make the best of it. I've been a motorcycle enthusiast since I was a kid....
For many years we had a neighbor who was taking care of his wife who had dementia. He and she were living in he...ll. I would not see him for a few weeks, or even months, and when we did meet up again, he would always look much worse.
You could see him aging, and to be honest, having the life sucked out of him and dying a slow death. We have another friend who has been going through this for
decades, with first the mother and now the father. It is horrible....
Eventually, after too many years, his wife died and he was free to live again. He started to date, and at his age, the demographics were in his favor.
He sprang back to life and erased many of the bad years he had endured. It was like watching a plant that had not had water in weeks, suddenly get some rain, he just sprang back to life.
At one point, he was seeing three woman.
He found a new wife who shared his interests and life experiences. His new wife had cared for her ill husband for many, many years just like my neighbor. They had a bond of understanding of what they had both lived through. They also had shared interests.
The big interest was motorcycles. He rode a bike before his first marriage, but his first wife did not like him riding the bike, so he sold it. The woman he met, and eventually married, like to ride bikes but HER first husband did not like HER riding a bike, so she sold it.
When two decided to get married, they went out and took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation class together!
They bought matching bright colored riding leathers AND matching motorcycles!
We would always get a big smile when we would see them zipping along on their matching bikes and matching leathers.
Life is short but a life, where one can do things, can be much shorter....
My neighbor had surgery. It almost killed him. Unfortunately, the very long story, summarized to the Readers Digest version, is that he was in and out of the the hospital and rehab for years! I do mean years. He had multiple surgeries and he almost died a few times. His second wife, bless her, ended up having to take care of her second husband like she did her first.
She was one strong person. She got tired of visiting her husband in the hospital and rehab, and given she had nursed her first husband for years, she bought a hospital bed and brought her husband home to take care of him. She had moved into his house but had kept her house. Eventually, she moved them back to her house, and they sold his house, at which point we lost touch with them. Many years have passed and I would think so has he and likely she.
Living can be a much shorter time span than just existence....
Later,
Dan