By Mickey Dunaway | Reprinted with Permission by Currents Magazine | JAN 2024 | Cornelius, NC

Every new January is a time we typically use to do a little self-reflection and set some reasonable resolutions for the new year, which we also seldom meet.  I have been wondering why that is.  The section of this Currents Magazine for this column is called Limitless.  I like that name.  It seems to indicate that opportunities for us in the autumn of our years are endless. 

I turned 77 a few weeks ago, which caused me to look at the time I have left on this mortal coil.  According to Psalms 90:10, I have already exceeded my expected lifespan by seven years.  My mother lived to almost 92.  I took her lifespan, less the 12 years of her childhood, and calculated with the help of Time and Date (www.timeanddate.com). 

Her life provided some interesting numbers: 29,516 days, 4216 weeks, and 970 months.  Almost limitless opportunities.  

Our lives yield similar times for opportunities.  But how do we look at the days without accomplishments?  Life is more than just always doing things.  Doing, doing, doing, and doing doesn’t make for a meaningful life.  Living should also be about just living.  My across-the-street neighbor has a scotch every day at 5:00 p.m.  And when her husband was very ill in the hospital with ALS, she sneaked in a bottle of Scotch, and they had their salute to their lives together every day at 5:00 p.m.  That is living!

My father was a mechanic who worked five and a half days a week.  On Saturdays in the Fall, my job before he got home was to cook us both a hamburger and put his hunting boots and our shotguns out so that when he stepped in the door, we could quickly be ready to put our beagles in the trunk of the car, and head to the woods for an afternoon of rabbit hunting.  Significant?  It is one of my most precious memories during my teen years. That was living.

Back to my mother.  She was married at 19, began teaching in her 20s, and retired from teaching in her 60s.  She died at almost 92, having lived a life filled with remarkable choices that seemed to come her way.  No matter how you view Annah Cowan Dunaway’s life, she had innumerable opportunities to make decisions that affected herself and others.  And she made them.  Were they limitless?

Some were of her choosing, but many were made based on providence.  My father went to war in 1942.  She was pregnant with my brother.  My father died 24 years into their marriage, leaving significant hospital bills, and a son had just graduated from Auburn, and another was about to enroll.

I expect once this column is republished on www.SouthernExposures.com, my webpage, I will have many of her former students who will write to tell me about being in her classes and how much she gave them.  Were those years limitless or limited by school bells and lesson plans and the behavior of middle school students!

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I recently turned 77.  My brother is 82.  According to Psalms, we are doing rather nicely.  We talk most days about the things of our lives.  Auburn.  Fishing.  Books.  Our children and grandchildren.  The stuff of life that gives it meaning. 

Assuming I inherited my age-extending genes from my mother, I may live another 12 years until 2035.  This brings us to THE QUESTION of this piece.  If I have another 12 years, what will I do each day with the hours I am granted by the Almighty and good physicians? 

Time and Date indicate I have 4383 days, 626 weeks, and 144 months.

Twelve years. 

Are my choices limitless?

Not at all. 

Lots of time. 

Very little time.

Lots of limits.

Damn.  I better get started on my book on the Dunaway family’s history! 

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Mike McLeod, my friend since high school, after making the most momentous decision of his lifetime, passed away on December 3, 2023, on his own terms. 

He shared his decision on Facebook with friends and family, and I shared it with you with his permission.

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November 14, 2023

Dear family and Friends,

I have decided to go into palliative care, withholding dialysis.  My dialysis director indicated that death without dialysis usually occurs around 2-3 weeks later.  She indicated that death is not typically painful.

I hope that you will respect my decision.  It came after a lot of prayer, consideration, and discussions with Mary.

This is only shortening an event that is inevitable in the very near future.  This will just shorten what has become an extremely painful life.  I love you all.

-Michael McLeod