it is a good day to die

So says Old Lodge Skins. It is one of my favorite lines from Little Big Man.

I know I have lived a long time when I start relying on old movies to give some meaning to my life. Or maybe I have been doing that for seven decades and just not realizing it until now.

I thought of that line this morning as I stepped out of the shower. Bathroom mirrors are a wonder. They do not need to lie to us -- to pretend to be nice. Unlike people, they have no need to sugarcoat the truth.

For the past four months, I have been losing weight. The first month was not officially part of my weight loss program. Even though I had started a healthy diet and was regularly exercising, I lost a good deal of weight in June primarily through recurring diarrhea. A month of it.

Multiple trips to the doctor never solved the problem. It just went away. But, blood tests revealed some disturbing news. Almost everything was high. Including my blood pressure.

So, I upped my game. I switched to a low carbohydrate-high fat diet and set a goal of 15 miles per day. And that is what I stuck with through the start of September. As a result, I lost 35 pounds. And then I plateaued.

I have now modified my diet to include a 16-hour fasting regimen along with consuming moringa and jamaica teas. That has not yet done much good. My blood pressure has increased and I have gained five pounds.

But I am giving it time. The pounds may be the result of a hiatus in walking due to a knee annoyance.

That still means I have lost 30 pounds.

When I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, I did not recognize the guy I was eyeing. And it was not my spiffy new haircut that was disorienting.

It was obvious I had lost weight. I could see that in my face. But it was my upper torso that caught my attention. My shoulders. My chest. They have disappeared. My clothes tend to hang on me now as if I had dressed from my father's closet.

I now understand the reaction I have received from people who have not seen me recently. To a person, they ask if I have been ill -- or something similar.

The only exception was a Canadian friend who commented on how thin I looked. I chuckled and told her what other people had been saying. She sighed and said: "Oh, good. I thought the same thing, but I thought it would be rude to say it." She is not a bathroom mirror.

None of this really bothers me. I have been fascinated with death since I was about 4. But it is the first time in my life I have had to confront the fact that I am feeling my age.

Now, I am not one of those people who have a neurotic fear of aging or dying. You know them. The people who rattle on about how everyone thinks they look 10 or 20 or 30 years younger than they are. That is, of course, nonsense. We all look our age because that is the age we are.

And putting on delusional masks will not change the basic fact of life -- we all die. We need to get over it.

I suspect I know what shocked me while I was looking in the mirror. I have always prided myself on looking vigorous. I have a Mexican friend who once made his living mugging people. He told me he always looked for people with obvious weaknesses. Old people were a favorite target because they look as if they would not put up a fight. He told me he would never pick me as a target because I walk too fast.

Those days may be over. I was thinking of painting a large bull's eye on my back. With my bum knee, I now look like the wildebeest the crocodiles would choose first for dinner. Fragility is one of the gifts of old age that will accrue interest.

Several years ago, The American Spectator ran a symposium on the issue of heaven. It included pieces from an atheist, an evangelical Christian, and a Jewish rabbi.  The atheist and the Christian both wrote well-reasoned, logical pieces on their view of the concept of heaven. But I could have each myself. I found nothing new in them.

The rabbi's piece stood out. He started, as any good rabbi would, by pointing out we were asking the wrong question. The question is not what heaven will be like, but how we should be living our lives here. By focusing on heaven, we completely forget the basic teaching of Torah. To love God above all else. And to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. By doing that, we help to create a bit of heaven where we live.

I suspect I liked the piece because the rabbi I follow said almost exactly the same thing two thousand years ago.

So, instead of worrying about how I have now become old, maybe I should be thinking about how I share the last few of my years with the people around me. And it is a lesson I need to learn. Especially now, as the political world I once found familiar seems to have gone stark raving mad.

There is magic in the rabbi's words. But, only if they are put into practice. 

For those of you who recall the closing scene of Little Big Man, you know Old Lodge Skins utters that famous line as he lies down in the burial ground hoping to die with dignity. Instead, it rains.

He looks up at Jack Crabb and says: "Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't." They walk back to the Indian village for dinner.

And, I guess that is how I feel, as well. Sometimes the magic works. And it helps us through the times when it doesn't.