Too Old? Who Says?

My father is seventy years old and last week he kicked my butt in racquetball. He moves around on that court like a much younger man, and he reminds you of that often as well. It is always humbling — and sometimes frustrating, to get outplayed match after match, but then I remember what a miracle it is that he is playing at all and that brings the magic of being able to play together right back.

In July of 2010 I woke up to a phone call you hope to never receive: your father is in the hospital and you need to get here fast. They lived in Anchorage and I lived in Wasilla, a town ninety minutes to the north with more than fifty-five miles of snarled rush hour traffic between us. It would be slow going to get there and it would not be made better by waiting it out. I flew out the door in a mess of unwashed hair and mismatched clothing hoping it would not be too late once I got there.

He had quadruple bypass surgery, an operation I have since heard referred to as the widow maker; I am glad I did not know it was sometimes called that back then. I lay with him in his hospital bed like a small child the night before, my youngest brother on the floor nearby; we had not done anything like that in a long time, him a teenager and me in my early twenties. We were so scared, so very scared, but though the odds I never worried we might not ever get to play racquetball together again. He bounced…