I was confronted with the worst thing imaginable, yesterday. Worse than The Calamities. Worse than another Yankee loss in the Playoffs. Even worse than–yes–my hair finally turning gray.

A now former, well-thought of friend sent a picture of my new born family from over 50 years ago. It was not asked for, not deserved, and not accepted with the grace and humility you’d expect from the mature me. It’s very existence threatened my contentment and fostered ill—

Who am I kidding…it was really cool to see a snapshot of what life was like 5 decades ago, before smart phones, before the internet, when a car could still be repaired with pliers and a crescent wrench, two adjustable tools with the power to screw or unscrew the world! (“Screw the world” was a slogan from the the radical 60s, a fact unrelated to the featured, fantastically flexible tools.)

The feigned umbrage was the first immediate response to viewing the pic when the mind was shocked into asking “Who in this whole, wide, wonderfully alliterative world wants to add to its suffering by reminding me of the time when the bulk of life was in the visor of my Easy Rider motorcycle helmet, not in the rear view mirror of those cars I used to be able to fix. What was this dubious friend’s endgame, the destruction of my carefully crafted contentment? (Apologies for show-off alliteration?)

It only took moments, however, for the swing of the mind, the arc of reason, to return to how grateful I was to make it through those younger years without major health, romantic, intellectual, and sexual disasters. It was dumb luck kept me free from DWIs, unwanted pregnancies, severe financial losses, and voting Republican. Any one of those catastrophes might have changed the upward line of my life to a flatter delineation, even pointing down, to where–if I remember correctly–some old girlfriends strongly and stridently suggested I go.

The reader can see I’m drifting. Lost the point of today. A successfully, albeit, accidentally, navigated past life is one to be savored, and one should sit back in The Chair and thank a great and all powerful God (of any denomination) for first, giving the gift of life, and second, not taking it away, prematurely. There were deaths in the past of those who did not deserve it, and were often too young to make sense of, but it was never me. I made it.

From that declaration, it’s an easy stroll to the idea of who helped, who made a difference, who cared…and maybe why? An English teacher’s casual remark to an 8th grader. A coaches push to do something different. An ex-girlfriend;s unintended, but hurtful comment. A young doctor willing to take a chance on an out-of-the box reconstruction of damaged body parts. An interesting best friend at the best time. A traffic cop willing to obey the rules of fraternity instead of the law.

I should stop, now and get to The Chair. No telling what else will bubble up, thanks to The Picture…

Yes, thanks.