The tenuous reality of the blessed life

I don't spend a lot of time on the Threads social media platform, but recently I found myself there. I came across a post from a fellow Gen Xer lamenting how difficult it is to be in your mid- to late 50s.

At this age, the person wrote, you're sometimes caring for elderly parents AND your older children AND even grandchildren.

You're often slogging toward retirement with insufficient savings and no desire to play the corporate politics necessary to get ahead...all while reporting to a boss 20 years younger.

And you're starting to experience the feeling that the world might be passing you by, both culturally and technologically.

Those are all valid points, and I see them up close and personal in many of my peers.

Which is why I'm somewhat embarrassed to tell you that, so far, my 50s have been the greatest decade of my life.

I feel wonderful, I have lots of energy, I've learned some things, I get to do engaging work every day, and I'm blessed to have hobbies I enjoy. I have an amazing wife of 34 years, five great kids, and the best little grandson anyone could ask for.

I also have a relatively short runway ahead of what is shaping up to be a fairly comfortable retirement.

And while the reason for it is sad, I don't have any older parents or in-laws to care for simply because they have all passed on. I miss them terribly and often wish I had that sort of "burden" in my life.

By any definition, though, mine is a blessed existence. I couldn't relate to that post on Threads.

But here's the thing: All of it can change in a second.

One grim medical diagnosis. One corporate restructuring. One stock market crash. One disastrous car accident.

Any one of those things (and any of a thousand other imagined calamities) would immediately transform my sunny situation to one of worry and despair.

I am acutely aware of this. I know how close I am to being in very different circumstances. "There but for the grace of God" is a thought that runs through my head multiple times a day.

You never know what life is going to throw at you. I'm not owed anything. I've done nothing to deserve the good things I have, any one of which could go away tomorrow.

(This is not meant to be pessimistic, by the way. Just realistic.)

Many of us in this part of the world live in an artificially comfortable bubble. We are seemingly immune to war, famine and persecution. We have access to advanced medical care. Our social safety nets are deep and wide.

This is especially true if you're of my particular demographic. Socioeconomically speaking, the system is constructed so that people like me will probably succeed.

Somewhere along the line, though, things will get harder. It's inevitable.

In the meantime, all I can think to do is live a life of cliches:

I take it one day at a time.

I help others when I can.

I frequently take stock of everything I have, and I thank God for it all.

Someday, when the rain falls a little harder (maybe sooner than I realize), I hope I continue thanking Him. I hope I will be humble, grateful, and happy. I hope I will appreciate the valleys after spending so many years on the peaks.

I don't know what lies ahead, but I do know how good I have it right now. And for the moment, I hope that's enough.

5 things I've learned having been a grandparent for one year

Me, Cal, and my daughter Chloe

Tomorrow our grandson Calvin turns a year old. I am not the first grandparent to marvel over how quickly time passes, nor will I be the last.

But I'll say it anyway: I can't believe it has been a year already.

Cal is one of the funniest human beings I know. He constantly makes me laugh. Sometimes I think this is intentional on his part, other times I think it's just his quirky personality coming through.

Either way, the kid kills me. I love him so much.

I don't promise any special insight in this post, but here are five quick things I've learned in my first year of being Grandpa Scott:

(1) Having a grandchild can make you realize things you should have done when raising your own kids: I can't speak for other grandparents, but sometimes when I'm watching Cal, I think back to when our kids were little and ways I could have been a better dad to them. Which makes me a little sad. I always wanted to be the best father I could, but I don't think you can completely avoid mistakes when you're in the thick of parenthood. You just do your best, move on, and don't beat yourself up over it. 

(2) Never undermine your own kids' approach to parenting: One time, my dad (a man who loved the role of grandpa more than anyone I've ever known) gave Elissa chips even after Terry said she couldn't have them. He just couldn't say no to his little granddaughter, but sometimes you have to. Never contradict Mom and Dad.

(3) Speaking of which, you have more leeway to be your grandchild's friend, but remember you're still a grandPARENT: I've been calling Cal my little buddy from the first time I met him in the hospital. He and I play and laugh and have a great time together. But I also see my role as supplementary to whatever learning and discipline he's getting at home. It's easier for grandparents to be "friends" with a child than it is for parents. But as with item #2 above, it can't come at the expense of what your son/daughter and their partner are trying to do as the mother and father.

(4) If you'll forgive the cliche, the greatest gift you can give grandchildren is your time: Offer to babysit as much as you can, show up at their house whenever there's a chance. Be as much a part of their lives as circumstances will allow. They'll be better for it, and so will you.

(5) Love them. That's it, just love them: This isn't groundbreaking stuff, but it's profound. You don't have to read grandparenting books or earn a degree in child psychology to have a lasting positive effect in the life of your grandchild. Just love them. Let them know they're loved. Be there for them whenever you can. Over and over, day after day, for as long as you're around. That's job #1, Grandma and Grandpa, so get to it.

My wife doesn't think my taste buds work

I have mentioned here before that I will eat anything. Or at least I'll eat anything considered to be safe and socially acceptable.

Seafood? I love it all. Kale? I'm a fan. Exotic and smelly cheeses? Bring 'em on.

I have preferences, of course, but when someone asks which foods I don't like, I tell them there are no foods I don't like.

I consider this to be a virtue, but Terry thinks it makes me somewhat of a freak.

She cannot fathom, for example, that someone can happily eat sardines straight from the tin as I do. I know they don't smell great, but they're one of those foods for which the smell and the taste seem to have little to do with each other.

At least to me.

Terry has half-convinced herself that my taste buds don't function like other people's. If they did, she reasons, there's no way I would eat some of the stuff I do.

Of course, she comes from a family of picky eaters, so I think she's just jealous.

On the other hand, I don't know any different, so maybe she's right. Maybe my chemosensory system is out of whack and has gotten more out of whack as I've aged.

I did, after all, used to dislike coffee, wine, cantaloupe and sauerkraut. Now I drink/eat all of those things without a second thought.

What changed? I don't know. But I can you tell it's wonderful, when asked to list your dietary preferences and foods to avoid, to be able to say, "No restrictions! I'll eat anything."

Pass the liver and onions, please.

My father-in-law's impenetrable fortress of security

My father-in-law Tom has been gone nearly three years. I don't think about him every day, but it's often enough that I realize how much I miss him. He was, at his core, a good and decent man. Faithful, loyal, and dryly funny.

You could always tell when he thought he had said something hilarious because he would grin and his shoulders would shake with a little laugh. I imagined him thinking to himself, "Oh Tom, that was a good one."

Tom was a product of his generation, though like my dad, he had a love for modern gadgets. Computers, in particular, were his thing.

That was partly how he became the email and newsletter guy for our church. He had the know-how and a willingness to serve, so if there was news worth sharing within our congregation, it would come electronically through Tom.

He also had his funny quirks, though who among us doesn't?

One of the things Terry and I often laugh about is Tom's garage door code.

When Tom and my mother-in-law Judy moved into their home on Green Ridge Drive 20+ years ago, the detached garage had an automatic opener with a keypad on which you could set a passcode.

Tom needed something memorable, but he didn't want it to be too obvious. He decided to use the date of his and Judy's wedding anniversary, BUT...being a guy who was always one step ahead of would-be criminals, he made a sneaky adjustment.

Tom and Judy were married on July 1, 1961, which translates to a six-digit passcode of 070161. Ever the tricky devil, Tom opted instead for 070262, increasing the day and the year by one. It was a stroke of CIA-level security genius that would make it impossible for anyone to gain entry to his beloved garage.

Absolutely no one was getting in there to steal his scraps of wood and yard tools.

Tom passed away in September 2023. Sunday mornings at church haven't been the same without him, nor have family and holiday get-togethers.

I'm now the church email and newsletter guy, having inherited the role largely because I felt I couldn't say no.

When it came to serving his church and his family, Tom never said no. It was one of the most important things I learned from him. 

We're working toward having minimal stuff in our house for the kids to clean out when we die

The basement storage room in question

Such a morbid headline today, and the second time in a month I've written something that makes it sound like I'm at death's door.

Thankfully, that is not the case. I'm only 56 years old and in pretty good health. Neither Terry nor I plan on going anywhere any time soon.

BUT...we are also of the age where we have lost all four of our parents. In each case, we were involved in the job of cleaning out their houses after they passed.

When you find yourself renting a dumpster and spending hours and hours combing through boxes in Mom and Dad's attic trying to figure out what to save and what to toss, you become conscious of the need to spare your own kids that same laborious task.

So Terry and I have committed to a program of getting rid of the extraneous stuff in our house over time.

When I say "over time," I admit that means we're not exactly in a rush. If we were both hit by a bus today, our children would have a heck of a time cleaning out the basement storage room, not to mention the rest of the house.

It's just that 34 years of marriage and five kids mean you accumulate a lot of possessions, some of which you want to keep.

Those boxes of baby clothes? We store them for grandkids, knowing full well they take up a whole lot of space in the meantime.

That wall of Christmas decorations? Hey, we're festive people!

High school memory bins? We've admittedly trimmed those down over time, but we still have yellowing newspaper articles and varsity jacket letters that will simply be thrown away when we've moved on from this life.

Speaking of newspaper articles, in that storage room are a few large bins of three-ring binders stuffed with copies of virtually every story I ever wrote for The News-Herald and the Plain Dealer when I was a sports journalist.

That's thanks to my dad, who meticulously cut out each one and taped them onto scrapbook pages for long-term preservation.

A year ago I came this close to throwing those binders away, but I just couldn't do it. It felt like I would be dishonoring years of Dad's work and turning a blind eye to how proud he was of his sports writer son.

So instead I vowed to digitize them all before I throw away the hard copies.

Which, of course, will take some time.

Time I assume I have.

Kids, my sincere apologies if I never actually get around to it.