Numbers

I've been fighting a head cold for a few days now but managed to get myself off the couch long enough yesterday to go get a haircut. As I was surveying the finished product, I couldn't help but notice the seemingly sudden increase in grey hairs scattered about the top of my head. This isn't a new phenomenon, I noticed my first greys almost 20 years ago, on the day I graduated high school.

Anyway, I thought that the new greys I thought made me look more like my dad, except substituting my brown hair for his black hair, and my next thought was that this must be what fatherhood does to men in my family. Then there was my 3rd thought that stopped me in my tracks:

When I was the age that my daughter is now, my dad was in his early 50s.

What? That's insane! Who raised a toddler in their freaking 50s??

I was stunned. I'm still stunned. I turn 38 this year (that's the first time I could bring myself to state THAT tidbit in public) and I'm always thinking how much my kiddo, and I love her to death, wears me out sometimes, but how did my dad manage? I had always been...impressed? with the stat of my dad being 20 yrs older than my mom, that when my mom was born my dad was fighting in the Korean War, but for some reason this one seems to squash all of them.

And then there was a 4th thought.

When I was the age my daughter is now, my dad had less than 10 years to live. Yikes.

He died about halfway between my 15th and 16th birthday, at the age of 60, on the Friday of the first week of my sophomore year of high schools. Exactly 6 weeks after being diagnosed with inoperable lung/brain cancer.

Cancer also took his father, several years after. In some ways, I kind of feel pre-destined to be at least prone to getting it myself, but on the other hand, I feel like I'm living somewhat healthier than they ever did. My grandfather drove Greyhound buses across the country for years and enjoyed his adult beverages before quitting cold turkey when he retired. My dad smoked for decades before quitting cold turkey. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life and I've never drank as regularly as I've heard my grandfather did.

Still, I've got things I need to work on, and I guess this year is as good as any to start. I want to be around for awhile. Longer than 10 more years, longer than age 60. Unlike my dad, I want see my kiddo graduate high school & college. See her get married & have kids. My dad would've loved his granddaughter & vice-versa.

It's really weird how one thing can turn into 7 other things. How a haircut brings you face to face with mortality. And so it goes.