IN THE END
/IN THE END
By: Major Wes Wise (Ret.)
You may not realize it, but time has a way of moving too quickly and catching you by surprise, unaware of the passing years. It seems like only yesterday that I was a relatively short (5’8”), thin, bespeckled, young man, looking for a job – or better yet, a career – in law enforcement, a career I had yearned for my whole life as a child and as a teenager. A short time later, I was embarking on my dream job as a Baltimore Police Officer, just married, and looking forward to starting a family. Yet it also seems like decades ago, and I wonder where all those years went.
I know that I lived them all, and lived them well. Now, from time to time, I suddenly and without notice have glimpses of how it was back then and of all my hopes and dreams. But, suddenly, reality strikes, and I realize that here it is ... the winter of my life, and I have many more years behind me than in front of me, and it catches me by surprise... How did I get here so fast? Where did the years go? Where did my youth, my health go? Where did some of my friends go? Where did so many of the fine people I worked with go?
I well remember seeing older people through the years and thinking that those "old farts" were years away from where I was today as they faced their winter, and I was satisfied with my life but happier still that my winter was so far off that I could barely fathom it, or even fully imagine what it would be like.
But, here it is – one more upcoming winter. Perhaps my last. Unexpectedly, I feel at the edge of the winter of my life. Most of my friends have gone, retired and getting gray – just as I am. They all move slower now – just as I do. Our only race now is our race to the end, and we’re all getting closer and closer to losing the race. Every day I see an old man looking back at me in the mirror and I barely recognize him. Still short and bespeckled, but no longer thin but hopefully a little wiser.
Some of my friends from over the years are in better shape than I am, and some are a little worse. But none are anything like they were “in the old days” when they were also young, vibrant, and fresh-faced like me. Also like me, their age is showing and we realize we are now those older folks that we used to see and never thought we'd be. And some – way too many – are no longer with us at all, having already failed to make it through their winter.
Each day now, I find that just getting up in the morning, or getting a full night’s sleep, are my targets for the day. Taking daytime naps is not a treat anymore ... it’s inevitable, and I usually just fall asleep where I sit.
Now, as I embark on this journey through the final season of my life, I find myself ill-prepared for all the aches and pains or the loss of strength it brings, the loss of so many of my friends, the loss of my ability to remember important stuff. Or to remember the even more enjoyable unimportant stuff. I wish I could still do the things I used to do so easily and enjoy so immensely – but I often can’t remember what those things were.
But, at least I know that though the winter has come, and I'm not sure how long it will last ... this I do know – that when it's over on this earth ... it's not over – a new adventure will begin in its place!
I do have regrets; many of them. I look at all the things I wish I had done but didn’t. There are things I wish I hadn't done ... but got caught doing. And there are so many things I'm happy to have done. A lifetime of challenges faced and met – and some unmet. But little regret other than having not taken better care of myself, as everybody told me I should.
If you’re like me, many of the things you used to care to do, you no longer care about. You sleep better, if at all, on a lounge chair in the living room with the TV blaring than in bed. What used to be freckles are now liver spots. Everybody for some reason seems to be whispering and you can’t figure why, and you say “Huh?” way too often. Why don’t they speak louder so you can hear them?
If you're not in your winter yet ... let me remind you that you WILL be – and way too soon, because the end will be here faster than you can imagine. Whatever you would like to accomplish in your life, do it now, sooner rather than later! Don’t neglect your career, your family, or yourself. And don't put things off too long, like I did, because life goes by too quickly to make up for it later.
There is no promise that you will see all the seasons of your life one more time ... so do what you can TODAY. You can never be sure whether this is your winter or not! So, say all the things that you want to say now and that you want your loved ones to remember ... and hope that they appreciate and love you for all the things that you have done for them in all the years past, and love you the way you loved them!!
Remember, life was a GIFT to you, and the way you lived it was your gift to those who came after. I hope you made a fantastic life for yourself, as I mostly did. Navigate the time you have left carefully, because whatever you yearned for in life, time is all you have left.
A thirty-six-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, Wes retired in 2006 as the Commander of the city’s 911 System. While recovering from a stroke in 2014, he wrote two books about his experiences as a Baltimore cop. Wes has also self-published fourteen books for other writers. Need publishing help? Contact Wes at weswise78@gmail.com. A father of two and grandfather of ten, he and his wife of 49 years live near Baltimore, Maryland.
