I had planned on hitting the road yesterday to start my Sojourn, but the atmospheric river came through from California and we got snow in the Rockies. I postponed my departure and I am glad I did. A good friend from The Shed had an episode that sounded to me like a TIA—a mini stroke. I am going to begin taking a baby aspirin! Anyway, he couldn’t be persuaded to go to the emergency room, so I was enlisted to go over and check on him under false pretenses. I had given him some parmesan spinach artichoke dip, and he claimed to have liked it, so I took more over to him. The dip has enough butter and crème cheese to block major arteries, but, oh well.

He seemed fine to me. He had me over earlier in the week to look at some of his southwest jewelry. We talked two hours that day. We talked two hours more over the additional spinach dip! Four hours covered a lot more than the mini stroke.

We talked about life, and the choices we can make about life and death. We are both widows, both our spouses died of different forms of cancer. He is a vibrant 80 year old.

OK, yes, I have a good friend who is 80. It seems impossible, but then I will turn 70 this year! That seems even more impossible. When I turned 50, my mother suggested I consider giving up skiing. It was too dangerous, too risky. That was 20 years ago! Some of my best skiing happened in these past 20 years.

My 80-year-old friend was an outstanding athlete. He often says he is in the fourth quarter of his life. He jokingly says he hopes he isn’t in the two-minute warning period.

Isn’t that all of us? None of us wants to think we might be in that fourth quarter or the two minute warning period. Yet we might be.

And the life choices we have is how we might live those final plays. Do we live them afraid of the final buzzer, or do we play with everything we’ve got to the very end, knowing the game ends the same way every time.

We all know 50 years old is too young to throw in the towel. When my husband died at 62 it seemed like he was cheated, that he died too young.

But 70? 80? That’s getting old. Yet so many people live into their 90s, and their lives seem rich, although maybe not running marathons. But as soon as I write that, I figure there are some people out there that ARE running marathons at 90.

My own mother at 70 didn’t seem that old. She continued to drive 800 miles from Montana to Minnesota to visit me until she was 79. When she hit 80, she did seem old. I treasured every moment with her. I kept telling my husband I needed to spend time with her because she wouldn’t be alive forever. After ten years, he said, “You say that every time, and she hasn’t died yet.” And I would reply, “But now she really might die.”

And of course she did. At 91. She had a rich and engaging life through all but the last months. I hope I can be so lucky.