HOW WILL I DIE?

Not to be morbid, but I really believe it is normal to think about dying as we get older. And in thirty days, like many other Boomers, I hit the Big 60.

Now, I've always been in the "it's better than the alternative" camp about aging. Thirty and Forty went by without a twinge. I hinted at (and got) a surprise 50th birthday party because I felt I had earned every one of those years. But I'll have to admit that something about the '60' has me a little more wary. It's one thing to be starting down the closing slope at 50. The second half of my allotted century I forthrightly proclaimed. It is quite another to be already part way down a very slippery slope of uncertain length.

My husband Al hit sixty a few years ago - with long thoughts and a long face. I was cautious, but wasn't very charitable. It's just another ten years I reasoned. We all end up in the same place I reasoned. No one controls our time left I reasoned. Eventually, it did dawn on me that I had to go there too - and that reason had little to do with it..

So let's just say the thought of dying is no longer foreign to my meandering mind.

And then a TV ad about surviving breast cancer and dying while dancing with joy sent me careening down a whole new thought path about death and dying.

I want to die with someone I love; my husband Al, my daughter Stephanie, Jackson, Dylan and Karly my grandchildren, my sisters, my cats Samson and Lily.

I want to be hugging, snuggling, laughing, singing, dancing, bicycling, skiing, snowshoeing, reading, eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate, playing catch, listening to the trees, watching deer, hearing birdsong, staring into a campfire, awestruck by lightening and thunder, making love by moonlight.

No, I don't believe I have control over how I die.

But I know that I will never die in any one of the many ways I wish if I am not doing those things in life.

So now, for me, thinking about how I will die begins with thinking about how I will live. Doing.

Lewiston Library Foundation: GoodSearch.com & GoodShop.com

The current City of Lewiston(Idaho) Public Library is a small building that used to be a hardware store and which shares one wall with a bar.

But we have BIG ideas, dreams and goals.

The City has committed to matching the funds raised by the Lewiston Library Foundation (a 501-c-3) at $200,000 a year for five years in order to build a new library.

And EVERY PENNY HELPS!

Please GOODSEARCH and donate to a worthy cause without spending a cent!

At www.goodsearch.com you just type in Lewiston Library Foundation as the recipient, hit verify and search as you would on any search engine. Each search pays the Library Foundation about $.01.

Better yet, GOODSHOP and make all your holiday (and all year) online purchases by clicking through to the hundreds of online stores (either through GoodSearch or www.GoodShop.com) and a portion of your purchase is donated to the Foundation.

Be a "Do Gooder" and always GoodSearch!

PORTLAND LIVESTRONG CHALLENGE 2007 RIDE REPORT

Amazing. Inspiring. Awesome. Moving. How many superlatives can a person use to describe an event without sounding syrupy? But it’s true, the 2007 Portland LiveStrong Challenge is an event that profoundly inspires and is great fun at the same time.

Hopscotching right over the rather long and tedious drive to Portland, Saturday begins with packet pick-up and a visit to the LiveStrong Village. The first indication that this group cares about and supports each and every participant comes when you are handed the packet. Bells are rung and cheers go up as the entire room celebrates the efforts, and many times the cancer survivorship, of each rider, walker or runner.

In the LiveStrong Village are exhibitors of all types who support the fight against cancer. If a person hasn’t figured it out already, you begin to understand the breadth of the support and the depth of the commitment.

Saturday afternoon, Team IMAGINE has its first face-to-face meeting. With team members from Lewiston, Clarkston, Spokane, Provo and Hawaii their acquaintance with me and deep commitment to the battle against cancer are what they share. Now they get to meet and meld. Already they have made a huge effort in fundraising for the Challenge. Out of 181 teams we end in 12th place in total funds raised and are justifiably proud of the effort of a team with only nine members; the winning team has 229 members, is based in a metropolitan area and has corporate sponsorships. Team IMAGINE…Imagining a world without cancer.

Saturday evening is a pasta dinner for top fundraisers for which I and team member Diana Brown have qualified. At this smaller and more intimate gathering and with spouses in tow, we hear from Lance Armstrong and Alberto Salazar and listen to some of the amazing stories of the people participating in the Challenge; stories of courage and strength from survivors and family of survivors that often bring tears and always bring inspiration.

I am struck by being in a room full of people who are there because they have been touched by this awful disease and determined to fight. Each person in this room understood completely when Lance titled his book It’s Not About The Bike. And each person in the room knows the LiveStrong Challenge is not about the bike/run/walk either.

Sunday finally arrives. The rain starts about 5:00 AM and continues to pour down for the 7:00 AM starting ceremonies. But no one is complaining - for most of the people lined up at the start have faced or had friends and family face much tougher times that don’t end in a few wet hours.

We ride. Seventy miles. The rain does not stop. Team IMAGINE though, dressed for the weather, ALL make the 70 miles and cross the finish line through showers of yellow rose petals. And it turns out that we had fun riding, even in the rain. Go figure.

I ride because I want my grandchildren and their children to hear the word cancer and think only of some half forgotten disease from the olden days. Currently one in three men and one in two women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. Not acceptable.

And then, of course, there are the millions of current survivors. A person becomes a survivor the minute they are diagnosed. And for as long as they live, years or decades, they remain survivors. Right now there are more than ten million people living with cancer in the United States. And it is estimated that 1.3 million more will be diagnosed in this year alone. For each of them, the battle against cancer is about much more than a seventy mile bike ride.

Nobody engages in a project like this alone. Team IMAGINE is a very special and dedicated group. My heartfelt thanks to Diana, Michele, Peggy, Tammy, Karen, Vicky, Nikki and Crissy. The Crazy Ladies Cyclists, Twin Rivers Cyclists, friends and family (Especially my husband who cracks the whip when I get lazy and rescues me when I bite off more than I can chew!) have all been wonderfully supportive.

And to the many family, friends and all contributors…you’re the greatest!

LITTLE LOSSES

A wise woman once told me that the rule of thumb for fashion - at my age - was that if you had worn it the first time around you should definitely NOT wear it now. Mini-skirts, hip-huggers, platform shoes, peasant blouses, skin tight, belly revealing and so forth.

And if you think you are the exception...you're not.

Well, I was okay with that. Proudly I knew I could, would - was - aging gracefully; combining dignity with just the right amount of dash to keep things interesting. Understanding all too well that my mental picture had stopped aging in my thirties and resolving to live and dress according to the mirror not the internal image.

Even with the occasional blunder, (Damn, that is really a cute dress.) I shopped and wore with a blitheness that ignored the unseen and unsuspected future. Until I retired. And was looking sixty in the eye by a lash.

Even my occasional free-lance jobs, my charity speaking engagements, the occasional nights out can no longer obscure the fact that my fashion choices have narrowed. It's not that I really miss most of them. It is just that I miss the potential they represented.

Sigh...Tall high-heel boots? I look at the ads and simultaneously wonder why I ever wore such monstrosities and also why I miss the excitement of the purchase. Itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny bikinis? Shame on me if I fail to blush. Low rise jeans (hip-huggers reincarnated)? Let's just say my tummy has lost it's suck.

It's the little losses with age that wear on your mind. Knowing that once, you could do or be anything you wanted. Each year knowing that you were making choices; not doing some things that were still possible if you made other choices. Then knowing that choices had been made that ruled out some possibilities.

Eventually, knowing that no matter what choices and changes you might make, some possibilities were gone forever.

I'm grateful the boots and bikinis were once part of my life. While secretly I'm rather glad they're gone, I mourn their passing as my own.