Unlike with Grandpa it wasn’t death I heard but life. My heart was young and strong, it would beat away through my twenties, it would beat away through my thirties, it would beat away through my forties, and it would beat away through my fifties. If I got to Grandpa’s age, and he was eighty, I had used only a quarter of my life so far. Almost everything lay before me, bathed in the hopeful light of uncertainty and opportunity, and my heart, this loyal muscle, would take me through it whole and unscathed, ever stronger, ever wiser, ever richer in life lived. Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.
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