The name of Lewis Grizzard's classic has been ringing in my head ever since Monday morning, when I got a phone call from a detective in Georgia looking for next of kin for one Robert H---, deceased. Considering the fact that he used a former name for me, I was pretty sure that it wasn't my son he was speaking of, but it still took me back for a second, and sent both my daughters (one of whom called me with the message, the other, I had already been on the phone with) into a tailspin. No...as it turned out, it was, in fact, my ex-husband. The father of my two oldest children.Even as we speak, I am making a herculean effort not to break out into a song and dance (which speaks terribly of me as a person, I know), but this was one human being the world is much, much better off without. He put me through hell, and that's nothing to what he did to my emotionally-scarred-for-life kids, and frankly, he deserves whatever he went through...which most likely wasn't nearly enough. Appearances were that whatever happened was quick, but the results were really inconclusive. The really sad, pathetic part is that he died alone, and nobody missed him....for a long time.
God, deliver me from living a life like that.
I digress. The reason why Lewis' book title keeps playing through my head is because both my ex husbands are now deceased. The first....my second....I was still married to. It was the year I turned 40, and it was a real wake-up call to me to start taking care of myself. The man was tall and lanky, and worked a physically demanding job, so he pretty much stayed in shape. But he never ate right, and smoked like a freight train, and I lost him to a massive heart attack at the age of 51.
Now, the second (my first) is gone to an unknown cause which I can only surmise was also a heart attack (cause of death is undetermined). And here I am, about to turn 50 in another week.
Keith is my third marriage, and the man I plan on spending the rest of my life with. We've both been through so much, and this is such a sweet time in our lives, when everything....everything...is finally going our way. We have a beautiful home, great jobs, wonderful relationships with kids and grandkids....and our health.
Right now.
But I am still very much at an unhealthy weight. And I am getting older by the day. If I don't start actively working on being healthier every single day, odds are I will follow my exes into an untimely grave. And I will leave my precious Keith to suffer the same fate that I did when I lost my dear Bill way, way too soon.
I don't mind telling you....that scares the shit out of me.
It's time. It's time right now for me to get moving. Before it's too late.
