SADNESS FACING THE END

During the last few years of my Grandpa Z's life, he became somewhat obsessed with finding a way to lose weight as his doctor had suggested, without having to diet, exercise or give up the vices he enjoyed most – booze and smoking his pipe. He constantly searched the classified ads in the back of his favorite magazines for companies that promised instant weight loss in a pill, and the top of the chest-style freezer that sat in my grandparent's kitchen became littered with the various products he purchased in a futile attempt to ward off the cessation of his life.

Whenever a new package of pills would arrive in the mail, my grandmother would complain to me about the folly of my grandfather's purchases, as if I held some mystical sway over his line of thinking, but I never heard her criticized my grandfather to his face about the pills. In fact, she was the one who routinely set the latest pill-of-the-week on my grandfather's breakfast plate each morning. She knew the pills were useless, but I suppose she figured there was nothing to be gained by fussing over an old man's folly, so she threw up her hands and went along for the ride.

I remember feeling sad watching my grandfather taking the pills that I knew could never deliver as promised, but that sadness was not born from the knowledge that my grandfather had been taken by snake oil salesmen. It came from the recognition that my grandfather was facing the stark reality of nearing the end of his mortal life. He'd led a long and productive one, but he was frightened by the prospect of having to let it go.

The sports world has been abuzz over the past few weeks over reports of pro athletes using performance enhancing substances banned by their respective sports. According to allegations published in an article in Sport's Illustrated, Baltimore Raven's star linebacker, Ray Lewis supposedly used "deer antler spray," a banned performance enhancing substance, to aid in his recovery from a torn triceps injury. Lewis, whose football career will end this Sunday after the Super Bowl in New Orleans, vehemently denied the allegation. Some time ago, aging pro golfer, Vijay Singh admitted using the substance. So did New Zealand golfing pro, Bob Charles, though both Charles and Singh indicated that they did not know the substance was banned. Meanwhile, aging slugger Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees has been named by the Miami New Times as one of many professional athletes who recently received HGH, a performance enhancing steroid banned by baseball, from a Miami clinic. Rodriguez, who is also nearing the end of his professional baseball career, denied the allegations too. And then there was the Lance Armstrong fiasco; need I say more!

Although I understand why folks are irate at professional athletes who seek out ways to cheat their respective sports by using performance enhancing substances, I find myself more saddened than anything when I read about their alleged doping activities. I've seen grown men, who like my grandfather face the end of their days and are frightened by the prospect. I know it's hard for professional athletes to let go, to recognize their own physical decline, to climb down from their public pedestal and acknowledge that the sport they knew and loved had left them in its wake. I know these athletes made millions playing a simple game and basking in the afterglow of public adoration, but at the end of the day when one is left with only his own thoughts for company, fear of the end is no less frightening than it was for my grandfather. It made me sad back in my grandfather's time, and it still does today.