A subtle fear

At about the age of 40 my father had an increase in responsibility in his job, becoming a director of the business and, on the death of the original owner, taking on the administration, responsibility for accounts etc. Over the next 2 years I watched him become increasingly stressed, tired and fed up, culminating in the first of his heart attacks.

After a little while he 'retired' from the model business he'd run for years, and went to work for Spurgeon's College as a kind of maintainence man. This was a slightly flexible arrangement, where he was able to pace himself according to the energy and tasks available. In his later 40s he became seriously ill with further heart attacks, and had a multiple bypass operation, which probably extended his life for an additional 4 or 5 years.

He eventually retired on medical grounds at the age of 52, and died just a few months later at home.


About 2.5 years ago (when I was 40) the company I work for was taken over by a US company, and my responsibilities increased. I have become increasingly tired and stressed (as well as suffering significant demotivation at the beginning). Now 2 years on I'm struggling with a body that just can't keep doing the things it's always done before - I've been taking pain killers to keep going here this week, and my legs are continuously painful from spending so much time on my feet.

The subtle fear I used as a title isn't about dying - I'm not afraid of that, although I'd prefer it not to hurt too much. No, the fear is that I'm on a slope downward, where my body becomes increasingly useless and fragile, and I'm less and less able to support me in the way I need it to.

This is probably irrational, but I've seen and felt a lot of things line up. I even look enough like my father for people who knew him but that I'd never met before to recognise me. There are some major differences in that I've not had hepatitis, smoked or had a weight problem. But these similarities keep haunting me. It may be one of the reasons I've been regressing to teenage practices in some areas, like the mountainbiking, playing guitar too loud etc (which also helps reduced stress). I'm determined not to give in, but sometimes it feels like my body is betraying me.