Does life end at 65?

I almost hated to leave there, but I ended up being 65 years old and most people retire at 65. I was just following the pattern the way so many people think: When you get to be 65 you have to retire.

But I didn't retire. I took a job where I was executive director for Parents Anonymous. They work with people who are abusing their children, and try to break the cycle of abuse that is handed down from generation to generation. People don't realize that they were abused and that's why they abuse their children.

I also worked with a group in a housing development in the Charleston area, where there were a lot of drugs and other problems. I still get calls from some of the parents wanting to know what is going to happen when their kid is taken to court, and what they can do. I try to work with them. I would love to give them all Silva, but haven't found a way to do it yet. As somebody once said, nothing is free...everything is paid for by somebody. I haven't found the "somebody" to pay the expenses that would be involved in these people taking the course.

I must have thought I was getting old at that time. I was sort of beginning to feel old. When you look at the calendar and you are 65 - and I was more than 65 then - it can begin to drag you down.

For the first few years after I "retired," I was traveling around, having a good time working and establishing other Parents Anonymous groups. In the meantime, on the side, I would dabble in art - sculpture and painting pictures. I always did yoga exercises three times a week, and still do. I kept myself active.

But eventually I gave it up. I thought, Well, I am getting old. I will turn it over to this young man who has a degree in social work. My degree was in teaching.

When I turned it over to him, I must have made a bad mistake, because it fell apart. They don't even have a group now.

It was then that I began to go downhill. I was going in all directions, and felt the need to do some life changing things I guess.

"This is not going to be the end of me"

When I had my heart attack, I thought, This is not going to be the end of me. When they took me to the hospital in the ambulance, I knew I wasn't going to die. I knew I had to live for something, that there was something else in life for me to live for.

I remember thinking, "I won't close my eyes; if I don't close my eyes I won't die."

I didn't die. I got well before anybody else in the hospital, and I was on my way again.

That's when I took the Silva course.

It was really life changing for me. I felt like it was what I had been looking for all my life.

It all made sense immediately. As the instructor said, the right brain doesn't take a joke. And it doesn't. I remember that one of my favorite expressions was, "That really hurts my heart." I don't know what kind of messages I was sending to my body, but I sure got busy and stopped sending them right quick.

I learned all the techniques and used them all. I went to every class the instructor gave in Charleston, and drove the four hours to her town to attend more lectures.

One day when I was in her class, I told the instructor, "You know, if I was twenty years younger I would love to go to Laredo and take the instructor training." I really wanted to find out what was behind it, what made it work so good, what made all these good things happen.

She said, "That's the silliest excuse I've ever heard! You know you can go to Laredo and become an instructor if you want to!"

Then I began to think that maybe I could. All my friends told me I was too old. By that time I was 69 years old. What people are going to put you through the training and let you start at 69? Society doesn't accept that kind of thing. You know, you are supposed to get old and decrepit and end up in a nursing home by the time you are 70!

A sign from a higher power

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