Cathy had her fifth of twelve additional chemo treatments on Friday. She felt lousy on Saturday, but she’s better today. I dealt with my own medical issue on Saturday. I had an irregular heartbeat all day and night, but I got back into normal rhythm this morning. This happens from time to time with me. My doctor says it’s a nuisance more than anything. Yes, I see an electrophysiologist who keeps an eye on things, and my general practitioner has me on the proper medications to help prevent another stroke. Still, in the tradition of my Martin relatives, I worry about most everything. Today, though, I decided to just go on with my business. Cathy and I drove to the orchard for more apples. Then we decided to go to the garden center to get a mum and some pumpkins for our front porch. We put it all together and then cut back our peonies, another fall chore that’s been on our list. We do these things to convince ourselves our lives are ordinary even though, as we age, we understand they’re not. Cancer comes calling; heartbeats go whacky. We do the best we can to keep moving.

I remember when my parents’ health began to fail—my mother’s TIA’s, my father’s heart disease—and the way they still found things to give them pleasure. On the day of my father’s first heart attack, he drove home from our farm where he’d been harvesting soybeans, and he took to his bed. He asked my mother for some Longhorn cheese, a snack he’d always enjoyed. He’d yet to admit he needed medical attention. He just wanted to eat that cheese. Often, we hang on to the pleasures of our lives because we don’t want to acknowledge how precarious they are. My father survived that first heart attack. He lived three more years before a second one took him. During those three years, he had much that he enjoyed, as did my mother. I don’t mean to say they didn’t worry; I’m sure they did. They worried about who would be the first to go, and they worried what would happen to the one who survived. This Friday, I’ll turn seventy-one. I’m learning such worries come with the territory. Still, there are days like today when apples, pumpkin donuts, mums, and decorative pumpkins bless us. We learn to cherish such ordinary details. We wish for as many days as we can get, days like this one—nothing special, just an ordinary day spent in the autumn sun.