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Yesterday was my Dad’s birthday. He turned 77 years old.

When I phoned him to wish him well, one of the first observations he made about his age was this: He turned 77 years old. The average life expectancy for his demographic is 77.5 years. He hoped the next six months would go well for him.

We had a bit of a chuckle about that.

We spent a while just shooting the breeze, catching up on the latest news in our respective necks of the woods and talked about upcoming plans.

He said he found some old photos of me as a young adult and some of me as a kid. He’d like to hand these off to me the next time we meet in person. Also he found a stash of love letters I’d saved between me and my teen crushes. That’ll be fun reading, haha.

After closing the call I realized he and I had reached a stage a while back that was very comfortable.

I am no longer desperately grasping for his approval. This was a game-changer.

Don’t get me wrong; I still respect his insight and opinions and like it when we can joke about life, growing older, and the fact that uncertainty is still very much alive and real even with our combined 133 years of life experience.

But instead of a pair of guys who are seeking to convince and correct the other, we’re now just a couple of old pals who can comment on the state of existence and just appreciate each other’s company.

We’ve been thru a lot together in the last 50-odd years of life. We haven’t been in each other’s daily life for a few decades now but still, we’ve had our share of chats.

Here’s to six months of good health and choices for him. And six more after that. And many more after that.

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I remember as a kid reading a comic book whose series centered around ironic and gruesome tales of people who let bad influences take advantage of them. I think that was “Tales from the crypt” or “The twilight zone” or something along those lines.

There was one in particular that stuck out and influenced me from then on. It was about a guy who loved to read news stories about horrible events. He loved reading about the pain that was inflicted during the victims’ final moments. Most were mass accidents like airline crashes and car pileups and etc.

I can’t remember the fate that came to him as a result. But I remember being intrigued by the idea that people would find pleasure in knowing the details of others deaths. It saddened me and made me wonder about how normal people thought about things.

I think I was about 9 or 10 at the time and was realizing I wasn’t like normal people.

If a company spent time and energy printing a comic book about this, then I figured many people thought like this character did in the story. Why else make a tale warning them about the spiritual aspects of their interests?

From then on I always wondered what people were really thinking when they were presenting the news. Were they horrified, or excited? And what ironic fates were in store for them?

Pretty heavy stuff for someone who hadn’t yet lived a dozen years on this planet. Well, I was also witnessing stories the media painted about the horrors of the Vietnam war during that time as well. It made sense that I’d be thinking about how people would act and react in times of crisis.

Do pray for protection. Nor out of fear but out of wisdom and comfort. Stay under that huge umbrella of protection God provides. Whatever brand of Goodness you are drawn to, seek it and stay close to it.