THE BEST VIEW: Expiration Date

by Norma Best Boucher

“I’d say you have another 10 years,” the doctor said casually.

He stared at his computer. I stared at him. His facial expression never changed, but my mouth opened into a big O-shape, and my eyes opened extra wide.

His “You’ve got a lot of life left in you.” was my “OMG! I have an expiration date!”

The rest of the visit was a blur with his telling me to see him again in six months. I made the next appointment but completely forgot to get the paperwork for my next cholesterol test which is the real reason for these biannual visits.

I walked to my car, got in, locked the doors and just sat there.

I imagined every scenario. Will I sour like milk? Will I harden like brown sugar? Will I melt, reform, and turn white like a sun heated chocolate bar? I already had white hair. What was the next stage?

My good health results had turned into a Pandora’s Box of unknowns. Instead of my life passing before my eyes, I saw flashes of myself turning this way and that to avoid the unavoidable.

To say I was overwhelmed at that point is an understatement. It seemed like only yesterday I was young.

I closed my eyes and relaxed a little.

Wait a minute. What was going on here?

I was the same person walking out of that office as I had been walking into that office. Nothing had changed. Nothing except my attitude, that is.

Memories started to break through the negativity. When I was 11 years old, my father had the first of his many heart attacks. He was only 43 years old at the time. Doctors gave him five years to live. He defied them all and lived 15 additional good years.

My maternal uncle retired to Cornville, ME at age 65. He grew and ate his own vegetables and fished every day that it was legal to fish. He outlived all other family members in his generation and passed at age 94.

I have a photograph of my paternal great-grandfather with his four adult children standing in front of their farm in Ontario, Canada. He was 101 at the time and still working on the farm. To repeat the family’s cliché definition of him, “He was still sharp as a tack and fit as a fiddle.”

What a healthy gene pool I have inherited. What positive lives I have to follow. What great attitudes I have to emulate.

My initial shock was wearing off.

I re-adjusted my attitude and stopped the wild thinking.

Reality tells me that although death is inevitable, expiration dates belong in the refrigerator.

I took a deep breath, started my car, and drove head on into my future.

There was no time to waste.