But of this I am certain:  that I’ve come this far makes me one of the lucky ones. Many people never had a chance to see the view from where I stand, and I might well have been among them. I’ve known days when the voice of depression told me that death was a better idea than trying to carry on. For a long time, I bored my doctors, but over the past fifteen years, I’ve become a “person of interest” to several kinds of specialists.
So I’m not given to waxing romantic about aging and dying. I simply know that the first is a privilege and the second is not up for negotiation.