Thanksgiving

Me and my Grandpa Tipton.

Last week I survived my 59th birthday. It was quiet and peaceful. No big deal. Lisa and I spent an enjoyable day together in downtown San Antonio. It struck me that I’m on the last year of my 50’s and I’ve been having little flashbacks of my life. It’s like my brain is determined to play back little video clips all the way back to my early childhood. It’s almost like I’m watching another person’s memories because so much time has passed, so much has changed…except they are my memories from my life.


In one clip, I am back to the age of 14. It’s Christmas and my mother and father and my younger brother and sister are all living in our drafty old farmhouse in Central Illinois. My parents are young and I’ve never been married, never gone off to college, never started my first real job, and never started my own family. In this moment of time, THIS is my family…the five of us. It only lasted a second, but in that moment all the sights and sounds and smells of that Christmas came flooding back to me and I was there. But, just as quickly, I am back in my 59 year old body, living with my wife Lisa in San Antonio, Texas and both my parents have passed away. My brother and sister are in their 40’s and 50’s and I have 3 grandchildren with number 4 on the way.

When I am in these flashbacks, they seem so real. It’s a little like Kurt Vonnegut in his book, Slaughter House Five. In my case, I am zapping back and forth between past and present like some kind of time traveler, but only for a second or two at a time. I get a sense of how much I have changed over time, how different I am from who I was back then. In one moment, I am a child living with parents and siblings and the next, I am a husband, father and grandfather. There is a part of me that wants to linger as the child with my parents, but another part of me that can’t wait for the next chapter of my life to begin.

Inside this 59 year old body, I’m still this young, strong, 17 year old boy thinking he is going to live forever until I look in the mirror, until my muscles ache and I feel like taking a nap. The 17 year old tells my body to plant some trees, dig a garden and chop firewood until the 59 year old says perhaps tomorrow. Inside there is this “core being” that never seems to age, but he takes notes on all the changes…and adjusts. Today, I’ll take a nap and perhaps tomorrow…I’ll move the world.

Approaching my sixth decade of life on this planet has made me introspective. You see, Life is all about change. We don’t stay children. We grow up. We don’t stay young forever. We eventually grow old and die. Life is constantly changing around us. People come into and out of our lives. We experience the good as well as the bad. We interact with Life and Life…interacts with us. We grow and we learn and…we adjust.

Each day should be a Thanksgiving for who we are and who we are… BECOMING.

Food for THOUGHT…