Mortality

As another year comes to an end, and a decade for that matter, and as I visit family for the holidays, I think about mortality. My grandmother, the last grandparent, Lavonne Jacobs Ellsworth, has been diagnosed with breast cancer now. She's 93 years old and already has cataracts and can barely get around. She's refusing chemo for the cancer so she probably won't be around much longer. She lives in a run down neighborhood that was sparkling new back in 1955 when she moved my dad and the family there, but now it's just another run down area of Dallas. As I drove around the city even where I grew up in Garland, it just seemed so decrepit like some city in the NE and not the golden city I remember from childhood. Dallas was considered a black hole after Kennedy was assassinated there in '63, but by 1980 with the Sunbelt boom and a hit TV show, it was a sparkling oasis while the NE crumbled in recession and every other car in Dallas had Michigan plates and a U-haul trailer on the back. It was the place to be and now it looks just as dead as Grand Rapids or South Chicago. My cousins from Chicago came down for their dad's 70th birthday a few weeks back and they confirmed my thoughts of this. When your city has a S.W.A.T. show named after it then you know it's bad. On Christmas Eve at mom's we light candles for those that have passed on in the family. We started doing this after Memaw died in 2003 and the tradition continues. Today I found out that Jena's dad had a mild stroke and is in the hospital tonight but should be okay. I myself feel in the worst shape I think I've ever been. I've made a promise to myself that as the new year AND decade begin I'm really going to try and take care of myself but that remains to be seen. I showed mom 'Food, Inc.' last night and it reminded me of what I want to do about food and my diet. All this mortality stuff has me thinking about God again. Though I have my spiritual 'The Twelve' I still don't feel like I'm getting the spiritual boost that I need. And for someone that still feels guilty from time to time for a religion he doesn't believe in, maybe I should start looking into that same spirituality to use to make myself feel better about living. I accept death for what it is. I don't think I have the same fear of it as most people do. But I do need to look at the LIVING part of mortality. You must live first before you die and I still have a lot more of that to do.