A Healthy Sense Of Urgency
By Abigail Trafford
Tuesday, February 17, 2004; Page HE01
For geologist Allen
Throop, the aha! moment came on a trip across glaciers in Alaska. "I
love land forms," says Throop, whose career had taken him and his
family from Pennsylvania to Australia and then to Oregon, where he
worked for the state government for nearly 20 years. "It was just
awesome," he says. There was one particular place in this endless,
untouched black-and-white landscape of snow and rock. "My favorite
spot," he says. He'd brought his recorder to play some music on the
trip. "I sat there for a while. I played the recorder."
That was the
summer of 2001. Throop was 57. Like many people inching toward My Time,
he had begun to get restless. "I was healthy. I wanted to do other
things. Not that I disliked what I was doing. It was time for a
change," he recalls. "So I quit. . . . I didn't have definite plans."
He happily entered a period of second adolescence, a time
of letting go and trying new things. He taught some geology classes. He
worked on environmental projects in his community. He went on a marine
geology expedition. He visited friends. The invitation from a skiing
buddy to make the 110-mile trek across the glaciers came out of the
blue. At first he thought: "That's preposterous!" A man of his age to
take on such a feat of endurance? His next thought: "Of course I want
to go."
Throop, an athlete who jogged, swam, hiked and biked,
trained for months. The trip took 15 days. The four men -- Throop and
his buddy and two thirty- somethings -- carried 80-pound packs as they
charted their course.
If he hadn't retired from his government job, he wouldn't
have made the trip. In retrospect, he says, the decision to make the
break "was brilliant."
Today Throop is in hospice care. A year and a half after
the Alaska trip, he was diagnosed with ALS (amytrophic lateral
sclerosis), or Lou Gehrig's disease, a vicious killer that slowly
destroys the nerve cells that control muscle movement. Arms, legs and
even the throat eventually stop working. There is no cure.
"Life is short for all of us. I've always felt sorry for
people who hate what they are doing," says Throop. "Since I retired, I
have thoroughly enjoyed all the stuff I've done. And now I'm really
glad I did it. If you want to do something else, do it. . . . Don't
assume you're going to be healthy forever."
This is the paradox of My Time. Statistically, men and
women who are healthy and fit in their fifties can expect to live well
for several more decades. But you may not. Diseases such as ALS or
Parkinson's can strike no matter how many miles you have jogged, how
many vegetables you have eaten.
Throop's story sends a wake-up call to his generation. A
sense of urgency dominates this period of life -- or it should. "That's
what we have and adolescents lack," explains Lisa Berkman, head of the
Department of Society, Human Development and Health at the Harvard
School of Public Health. "Young people can't see their way to the
future. We know what the future holds. Postponement is not a viable
option."
Jolts large and small start to accumulate, each one
sending a message that time is a finite commodity. They are easy to
ignore. Throop missed the first symptom. He was backpacking and woke up
one morning to find he couldn't move his hand. The numbness went away
as the day grew warmer. A couple of months later, his daughter noticed
he was holding his coffee mug with two hands. He recalls her words:
"Dad, most people can drink coffee with one hand. You better get
someone to look at it."
His disease is aggressive. He has lost the ability to
walk. He can do water exercises; a mechanical lift raises him out of
the water. With voice recognition software, he uses a computer to
communicate. He can't play the recorder anymore because his fingers
aren't able to cover the holes.
But his life has been extraordinary since the diagnosis. "This year has been a good year for me," he says.
It boils down to love. The My Time imperative is twofold:
Whatever you want to do, do it now. And whomever you love, show that
love -- now. Throop is surrounded by his wife and family, by friends
who make special visits, by neighbors who come by to fix the bird
feeder in the yard, by former students and colleagues. "I've had two
weeks of wakes," he says. "I've had the opportunity to hear people say
a lot of nice things about me."
Without the urgency of dying, that "doesn't happen," he
says. "We assume that we could say it tomorrow. We're reticent to use
the word love. I've been kissed more this year, and it's okay. The same
people would not do it a year before, when I was healthy."
That's why a sense of urgency is the agent of transformation. But why wait until death cannot be denied?
Throop knows his time is being cut short. Still, he has
accomplished the tasks of this new life stage by redefining himself in
the twin arenas of work and love. He found new purpose in his
activities, culminating in the trip to Alaska. He found new meaning in
relationships and in the giving and receiving of love.
His health has been stable since Christmas. He is glad
that he lives in Oregon and has the option of physician-assisted
suicide. "I have started that process," he says. "It is reassuring to
know that I can call the doctor and he would help." But he probably
won't use it. The hospice care he has been receiving is excellent, he
says. Once it becomes too hard to swallow and he can't eat, he will be
given morphine to make him comfortable until the end. "That sounds like
a better option at this time," he says.
Meanwhile, he is enjoying a full life. "I have no
regrets," he says. He's left his mark on the glaciers of Alaska and
made a difference in people's lives. He is rejoicing in the intensified
closeness with his wife and family.
Throop calls out to those who have not yet awakened in the bonus years: Whatever it is in love and work -- "Don't put it off."•
Abigail Trafford is the author of "My Time:
Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life" (Basic Books). To respond to
this column or share your stories, observations and ideas about My
Time, send an e-mail to mytime@washpost.com. To send letters by U.S.
mail, see the address on Page F2 and mark the envelope "My Time."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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