From David Trimble’s Still on Patrol:
What I came out of this ordeal (nearly dying of pancreatitis) with were three things: (1) a renewed faith in God and in the power of prayer; (2) a renewed appreciation and love for my wife, my sister and my parents, who stood with me through all the darkest hours; and (3) a determination to some day reach the end of my life with no regrets for having not tried to do the things of which I had always dreamed. Number 3 is why, at my age, I have taken up writing with a vengeance, started Civil War reenacting, taken my cooking to a higher level, and am wholly determined to squeeze the juice out of life to the extent I can do so.
Evidently hanging tough runs in the family. I have a cousin who is also into Civil War re-enacting, and he informed me that an ancestor of David’s “…was quite a guy and one of the older combat generals around. Amazing that a 60yr old would be wounded several times, captured at Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, have a leg amputated at 61 – and survive until 1888. He’s regarded as “perhaps Maryland’s most distinguished soldier in the War” according to Warner’s “Generals in Gray.””
That never hurts, but even at that our time here is very short. We must make it count. As Antoine Arnauld would say, we’ll have eternity to rest (no, I’m not one of those who thinks heaven will be a workhouse!) “We must do the work of him who sent me, while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” (John 9:4)
Positive Infinity 