Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Strong



Today would have been my dad’s 90th birthday and I would have had a big party for him. His office is next door to mine and is exactly as he left it and I still send telemarketers directly to his voice mail extension. My own Jubilee year, a year I leapt into nakedly and during which there was enormous light as well as loss, is coming to an end.

Having a teenager, a pre-teen Republican and a husband often gives me opportunity to appreciate the correlation between physical and emotional strength. I am now in my 6th month of Bootcamp and have practiced Yoga for about a year. In the 1980s I participated in aerobics with a vengeance but I was young then and unfettered and I don’t remember feeling particularly strong during that time, but I didn’t really need to be.

My dad exercised religiously just about every day of his life. He did not have the luxury of psychotherapy or the embrace of communal religion. He endured two marriages going down the tubes, legal difficulties, enormous financial reversals and the death of a child. When the life support was turned off, his heart continued to beat much longer than the doctors expected.

My dad was looking forward to his 90th birthday. There is so much I look forward to. Times are scary and sad and challenging and sometimes when there is white frost on the grass and I struggle up a hill hoisting an 8 lb. medicine ball above my head it feels like primitive worship. Like my father before me.

1 comment:

Cari said...

Happy Birthday, Grandpa. I only wish I could have been there to celebrate more birthdays with you when you were alive.

Love to All
Cari