DETERMINATION TO STAY HEALTHY AND LIVE LONG

When my father was a few years older than I am currently, I taped him in a conversation with a psychologist friend of mine who was a dinner guest.  I didn't stay around to listen to the conversation and when I heard it, I was too young to understand it as i  now can relate to everything he was saying.

At the time he must have been around 90 years old.  He had outlived his parents and five younger siblings.  He had outlived most of his friends, at least those who were within ten or fifteen years of his age..  When I speak to people about planning for their older age, one of my first comments is that 'you must look for younger friends'.  

I recorded that conversation my father had a long time ago and as I converted it to a CD, I recently heard it again.  My father was a very wise man.  He lived 107 years.  I realize that there are genetics which are now correlated with longevity, but he also was in tune with his body in a way I never had been.  

My father at age 96

The man ate only what he wanted and no more than would satisfy him.  (My mother stuffed all her children and I believe I lost the ability to listen to my body when I was young),   My father, in the 70s, used to tell me to eat lots of beans because they will keep you in good health,,,long before medicine decided they helped to keep cholesterol low.  He chinned himself daily until he was 90 and was extremely active and exercised long after his work demanded much activity. 

It wasn't until late in his life, when I asked him why he was so into health when so many of his friends drank too much, smoked, and stopped exercising...unlike my father.  He told me that when he was delivered by his mother in the hills of Greece in 1880, his mother's cousin served as a midwife.  As shocking as it may be to our American ideas of life, his mother thought he was too puny to survive and suggested that he be tossed down the mountainside (which is what happened in those years to defective children as there were no hospitals or treatment for them to survive in that demanding environment.)  The midwife said he was, indeed, little (his mother was a very tiny woman) but he looked healthy and suggested she give him a chance.  He heard this story while growing up and told me he was motivated to prove his mother wrong.  I guess he succeeded though she would never have known it, having passed away in 1929 while he lived to 1987.  Isn't it amazing what determination, caution and impulse control can achieve for us in our lives?