Pappa Hardy’s Musings on Life.

People keep telling me that I am just a shadow of my former self. Well, maybe that is true. It is sad that it has taken me getting an incurable disease, at least by today�s standards, to make me loose weight. I have lost a lot of weight, about 70 pounds the last time that I counted. I can tell a big difference, but it has generated a host of new problems.

First, other health considerations. I was once told by a physician that if I lost a lot of weight that I wouldn�t need to take blood pressure pills anymore. Well, here I am, 70 pounds down, and now my blood pressure and pulse are so low that we are worried about my pulse being at 45. Something ain�t right here. One thing to see a doc about.

Next, my voice is changing. What with Peter Jennings having and then dieing of lung cancer, now my wife is worried that I also have lung cancer or something terrible like that, so she wants me to see the doctor. Do you see a trend developing?

My clothes don�t fit. While I have looked forward to this event for years, to have it actually happen has turned into a big headache. Nothing looks good on me, and moreover, a female who is close to me actually described it well when she said I look like I am wearing clown clothes. Things are so big now that I am noticeably in bad taste. The trouble is I don�t want to spend the money to get something newer and smaller.

I have to admit though, in many ways I feel better and look better than I have in a long time. I just would like to loose the rest of it in the right places, rather than keep a lot of my belly, like I seem to be doing right now. I don�t know how much longer I can keep up starving myself. It seems that is what I have to do to loose weight. I have cut my calories way down, and that just seems to be making me stay hungry, not loose a lot of weight. When I try to maintain my weight, I am going to have to eat nothing still.

Went to my mother’s family reunion yesterday. It has been several years since I was to the last one and the last one we attended was traumatic because some of the kids had a terrible experience. It was kind of tentative for me to even show up.

The thing is, I havent’ seen my cousins and so on for years, and everyone has gotten older, except for my spouse and myself of course. I met all of these old people who I don’t know, and wondered how the many years had treated them. I met some favorite cousins too with which I had some wonderful memories. It was kind of scarry, kind of fun, and actually, despite not knowing anyone, was a great time. Maybe I should go more often.

I have what some people would call is a weird habit.

No, it isn’t that bad. However, some might call it strange.

I have always been an early riser. I have always been up and going by 5 or 6am in the morning. Perhaps I was spoiled by my mom and dad, who rolled me out of bed that early in order to get us all fed and get us ready for school, because they both had to go to work early.

In any event, I am usually up by about 5 to 5:30am in the morning.

That’s a little bit different than my dear wife, who is a night person and would easily sleep until 10am if she could, and would if she could.

I digress. What is really weird is that when I get up, I walk into the room where we keep the computers, turn on mine, and sit in the dark in front of a computer screen, catching up on email, writing in my blog, and going over my morning schedule. I love to type in the dark and have the light off in the room. It is like I have my own little secret hideout. It is also my time to be alone, to think, and to meditate or get concerned about what is going to happen that day.

I know it may be weird to some people, but that is when I can be by myself. I think we all need those times to be alone and think.

One of the challenges of growing older is that you don’t get to see your best friends once you get married, settle down, and start your own careers. You are all together in High School, and in this case, room together during college, but then life changes. I remember as a young man, before my mission, thinking that all of my friends would be close to me and live by me forever. However, that is not the case.

Serving a mission was also a place to meet and make an army of new friends. They have become old friends too, seperated by the gulf of years since I have returned home from my mission to Taiwan.

The joy is great when you get to see your dear friends again. Recently while vacationing in Washington we met and were runited with Scott and Verna Rhine again, after years of not seeing them. What a joyous reunion. We loved the opportunity to get together, talk about old times, and catch up on families.

HardyFamily/dadphoto/MikeFriends/Scott_and_Verna.jpg
Scott and Verna Rhine at their home in Oak Harbor, Washington.

That is one of the blessings of all the years that pass by. Life becomes rich with wonderful memories and experiences. That makes up for the aches and pains, the failing memory, and the bodies that now have diseases that they didn’t have before. I thank my God for old and true friends.

A reunion of Taiwan Missionaries at the April 2005 Jackson Group Missionary reunion. Left to Right:
Gary Silvers, Steve Markham, Mike Hardy, and Elder Allen Andersen, currently an Area Authority Seventy and Cousenlor in the Asia Area Presidency.

Nat King Cole, I believe, used to sing a song that my parents played over, and over, and over again. I think it was called something like “Those Lazy Crazy Days of Summer”. Regardlenss of whether he actually sung that or not, I can say that the last week has been crazy, not necessarily lazy, and it is the days of summer. I have been so busy at work that the “blog”, as it were, has been second place for a long time. I maybe will do better, but who knows. I don’t know that anyone really cares to know what I am thinking anyway so I do this more for myself than anything else. Writing is a way for me to express my frustrations and appreciations with life, and I do it only to get it off my mind, so to speak.

Well, may you all, you readers out there, have a nice summer. I hope you are doing more than staying inside all day long and working, or working out in the hot sun.