Mount Everest, Here I Come

As a card-bearing, 60-something senior, I often ponder my mortality. The thought that the Lord may soon take me home visits me now and then, especially when I am down with an ailment or feel aches and pains.

After all, the kids are grown, the mortgages paid, and life's loose ends tied up (well, almost).

I am now, as I wrote in my book, What Me, Retire? . . .

"Retired? Yes and no. We are out of the workplace and have completed the first half of our lives, but we are buoyed by a second wind to give meaning to our remaining wonder years, pausing now and then to appreciate the gift of time and the grace it brings." 

Then in the papers I read about a Japanese, 80 (who has had four heart surgeries), having just conquered Mount Everest! The oldest ever to have scaled that astonishing height. 

But wait. There is a Nepalese, 81, who is on his way to also conquering this tallest peak on planet Earth.

With this news, I am re-thinking my age and re-tooling my thoughts. In the two decades before me, I can still swim many oceans, fly vast skies, climb high mountains, including one as tall as Mount Everest—and find more grace in the process. 

Photo credit: National Geographic