The End
Here we are. The last day of 2024. The year started with me fretting about the need for surgery, A big surgery by most measures to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Finally deciding on the date, then having the surgery mid-March. Seven stents fixed all the broken bits. In July, I was told everything looked good, and they’d see me next year. That’s half a year gone, while interspersed with thoughts of mortality..
But all was not doom and gloom. Ten days in September salved a lot of wounds with a trip to the Black Hills, i took a trip to Marathon in August, and there was always music, the music I made and the music I heard from friends and bands of some renown–Dawes, Shane Smith, and the Turnpike Troubadours to name a few. Of course, music has always been the saving grace, through my late wife’s illness, and then in the years following her demise.
And now, here we are, and I turn my eyes toward the future, although my eyes have no more idea what the future holds than the man in the moon. It’s just that I’ve always found it best to face forward because the past will always be there to drag around or drag you down, while the future holds a lot of dim unknowables, pitfalls and possibilities, and you have to be on your toes to avoid one and gather in the other. Because even at my age I’m still banking on pleasant surprises.