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A Healthy Sense Of Urgency
By Abigail Trafford, the Washington Post
February 17, 2004
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."
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Global Action on Aging
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