Landmarks Across the Years

Last Thursday would have been my brother Phil's 61st birthday, had he survived. On Saint Patrick's Day 1996, he took his family's golden retriever out for a walk near some ponds behind his house in Marblehead, Mass. He never came home, and the following day his body was recovered from one of those ponds. Shakespeare might have called him "a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy," if he hadn't given Hamlet the phrase to use on the skull of poor Yorick. Yes, Phil was a fine, funny, hard-working, dearly beloved son, brother, husband, father and uncle.

Six years ago today, I died for about four minutes when my heart went into fibrillation at a meeting with a client in Oxford, PA, about 40 miles from home. (No, it wasn't the client's doing). By luck, an emergency rescue team from the nearby firehouse arrived with jump-starting gear in time to get me going again, and here I am, with an implanted electronic pacemaker-defibrillator to guard against recurrences. Today, at just about the six-year anniversary of the date on which I received my first implanted device, I received a replacement.

With luck, I should be in good shape for the next six to eight years. Life is good.