Morbid themes on the radio

So two different evenings this past week I was listening to Terri Gross on NPR and she was covering really morbid topics. These are sad enough on their own, but even harder for me right exactly now in my life, where I'm noticing lots of wrinkles, counting grey hairs in the bathroom mirror every morning, coping with a persistent nerve-related pain in my left shoulder and arm, and realizing that my body is moving into "the change" and I'm going to have to make sense of being a dried-up husk of a woman.

The second show was by a guy who wrote a book about dealing with his father's terminal illness and slow decline, and the bit I listened to was a bit with way too much detail about what it's like to turn off the oxygen - by then I'd had enough and just turned the radio off. But the one before I listened to all the way through, because it was about guitars as well - an interview with John Mellencamp (fka Cougar) about his new album.

Terri read out the chorus of the first song on the album, which was based on a little homily John's grandmother told him in her very old age. I reproduce them here without permission:

"Nothing lasts forever
And your best efforts don't always pay
Sometimes you get sick and you don't get better
That's when life is short even in its longest days."

Chilling. So, thinking about life being short in this way, I was wondering if I should immediately email the poem in the post just previous to its inspiration. But didn't, because you know, sometimes life is also long and you have to be tactical and patient about your longer-term goals.

So, favor to ask, blog readers, if I do sudden cark it unexpectedly, can you please make sure he gets it?

Off to dwell upon happier subjects, I've got Pandora on the Hives channel and the sun is shining outside.