1/7/22 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: Kindergarten in Art class making dinosaurs!

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family:

If I live to be as old as Betty White…

I have been thinking about that this week when I learned that the television star died on New Year’s Eve at the age of 99.

I am 65 years and 4 months old. Betty was a couple of weeks shy of turning 100. The way the math works is that if I live to be as old as Betty White I have got until around August 30, 2056 which is 34 more years and some change.

My oldest daughter will be 74 years old then! My youngest grandchildren, the twins, Thomas and Olivia, will be 37 years old and well into their adult lives. Will I have more grandchildren? How many great grandchildren will I welcome into the world before 2056?

I have worked steadily since the age of 10, albeit in those early years it was limited hours. How many more years of working do I have left in me? I am eligible for full social security in a year or so. Could I stand to be just a retired person for my last 33 years?

How many more miles can I put on my bicycle? I am almost at 41,000 miles now. Can I still rack up thousands of miles a year into my eighties and nineties?

I like to read. I read about 50 books a year. That would leave me about 1,700 titles to finish up. I probably have that many books in my house now, which means if I never buy another book I will still have enough to read; but of course I will probably buy that many again in the next 30 years or so!

What will the world look like in 2056? What will be the state of the country, our Church, the world? Is Social Security even going to be around for me to dip into when I finally do retire?

Of course, the big assumption here is that I get to live as long as Betty did. Insurance agents, pension boards and social security wonks are actually betting on me taking that final leap in the next 15 years or so. If I live past that I am costing them all money!

So when will that last day happen? The truth is, of course that I have no idea. God knows but he ain’t telling. Maybe I will be gone by this time next year. Maybe I will break Betty’s record and live into the 2060’s! And in that pondering is the mystery of our life on earth and the continuation of our soul’s life beyond the mortal veil: You must live each day as it were last while at the same time prepare each day as if there will be another one in the morning. If you are someone who likes to be organized and plan things, this should drive you crazy. Fortunately for me, my life has had more twists than a long piece of licorice so I am okay with the uncertainty.

God gives each of us a life. From my understanding we are to make of that gift what we can to be there for each other each day while at the same time prepare every day to meet Him face to face and, hopefully, share eternity with Him. One foot in our day to day existence, one foot over the edge of the cliff. Are you planners tearing your hair out yet?

From what I have read about Betty White she made the most of her 99 + years. She continued to work as an actress, making audiences laugh. She was passionate about the care of animals and donated both time and money towards the cause of their welfare.

Carlo Acutis, on the other hand, was a young Italian lad who died at the tragic age of 15. He is on track to be named a Saint, and the talk is that once named he will, because of what he was able to accomplish in his young life, be assigned as the “Saint of the internet.” It certainly can be said that he made the most of his much shorter 15 years of life.

There is, in all of us I think, a desire to live to be as old as Betty White and to die in our sleep peacefully at a very old age. But however and whenever our time comes we know one thing for certain: that time will indeed come. We will pass on from this life one day. The question we must contemplate is how well do we live that life? How many times do we add to the lives of the people with whom we come in contact? Is is positive or negative? Does we help to build His Kingdom or do we work towards tearing it down?

As we begin the year 2022 let us live as we still have many years to go. At the same time may we live as if we will meet our Creator before the sun rises!

Jim Silcott