The American Spectator

LET ME ADD UP the pluses and minuses. Truly, there are very few minuses. I had my blessings. I had two marvelous decades. Most important, I come to what may be life’s end without any guilt or regret.

Maybe I’m wrong about this, but, judging from the testimony of literature, I don’t think so. I think most people come to the end of their lives thinking, “If only I had done this” or “If only I had not done that.”

That doesn’t mean I have not done bad things. I have. But I have come to terms with having done them, and I have been forgiven.

I have had a job I loved. With every new assignment, my first thought was, “Oh, boy, I get to write.” I am crazy about my wife, and I have two wonderful sons.

It would be nice to have another decade. I may get it if a transplant by Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles works out; I have a donor. The docs better be willing to get to it fast.

These days, my default prayer is, “Lord, deliver me or take me.” Followed by, “Lord, forgive me for telling You Your business. Thy will, not mine, be done.”

SUPPOSE I HAD died in 1975. Looking back, I regard that old world as much superior to this one. I am scared again at the prospect of a new President — with much better reason this time.

But this is better. If I had died in 1975, without faith, without family, without love, I would have gone with a bitter curse on my lips.

Now, my heart raises a blessing with every remaining breath.