Birthday Milestones

Another milestone passed yesterday, my 68^th. The number does not have the same resonance as some others – 65, 50, 40, 21 – and in some respects it was uneventful, perhaps not even memorable. But since I passed 63, the age at which my father died, each year represents a minor triumph over what I considered at one time to be my destiny: to die before the age of 63. This observation may sound a little morbid, maudlin even, but when I was told, at the age of 55, that I had diabetes type II, that I had already developed cataracts in both eyes, and discovered that my father’s family, with one exception, had died prematurely, often following blindness or amputations as a result of the condition, I was sure that my physical destiny was to follow the same path as my father’s: obesity, shortness of breath, poor circulation, and, eventually, heart failure.

The one exception on my father’s side of the family was my Aunt Eva. She might have developed diabetes like her siblings, but she had the good fortune to meet her husband, a Polish soldier who had chosen to be demobbed in England, and who took her for their honeymoon to see the parts of Italy where he had been stationed, as a driver for the German army.  The experience changed my aunt’s life irrevocably. Having grown up in the Black Country, where any sighting of the sun was always obscured by industrial pollution, the quality of the light, and the more relaxed style of living of the Mediterranean showed my aunt what life could be like. She and her husband Geoff decided to emigrate, but found it hard to choose between South Africa and Australia. Both of these Commonwealth countries were offering inducements to immigrants, both had the climate that my aunt now so strongly desired. And so the choice was decided on the flip of a coin, with Adelaide, South Australia selected as their destination where a job was already waiting for my uncle. My aunt had always watched her diet, and the chance to have a large garden meant that she was always physically active, with the result that she lived a full life until her mid-80s.

Will I reach more milestones? I don’t know. But I do know that I intend to keep the diabetes in check through diet, physical exercise, and medication, and to continue checking off every milestone I can, including some of the more resonant ones.