Who Knows?

Note: This is not a pleasant subject. You may want to stop here and not read this post.

I wondered today about heart attacks. Who has them and why some who look like they might or even should have one don't. It's because of my friend Emmie, probably 80 years old or so and quite plump or heavy, as my mother would have said--that's the only way I've seen Emmie in the 10 years I've known her: quite plump. So I love her anyway, you know.

She was telling me stories about people who have needed her CPR assistance--I think she used to be nurse--which one died, which ones lived.  She said she doubts she could give that kind of aid anymore; her back wouldn't take it. Apparently, you sometimes have to keep up that pushing on the heart for long periods of time.

So I looked at her and wondered why she has never had a heart attack and why I have. No. I don't wish she had. But I do wish I hadn't.

Emmie left the room and other women entered.

I wondered out loud if the moment some people are born they are destined (not the word I want) to have a heart attack later in life. And somehow that is known throughout the universe, and maybe, no matter what they do, it's just going to happen. 

Lucy scoffed. I might have scoffed, too, if I hadn't been the one who said it.

She, Lucy, said it's diet and life style. Okay, I know that. Except has my lifestyle and my diet been so reckless? I don't think so. I'm not fat, well, not very. I have never smoked or drunk alcohol. I would suggest my life style has been no more reckless than the way many people I know have lived. That's what I would suggest. Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps.

My mother died of a heart attack. Will I? And was that programmed into my genes or my whatever from the moment of my birth? 

Not a question I'll be able to answer here. Wait and see what kills me, I guess. Happy thought.

You know, it's part of being a person to wonder about stuff like this. That's what I think.