@FIN

I can remember being in college and taking a course called "FORTRAN". That stands for Formula Translation as best as I remember it. It was much like Basic that was taught in every high school in the 80's.

The thing that I remember about it was that it required you to think of every step in a problem and go through the logic of how to reach the answer. At the end you would tell the computer that this is the end by putting in an "@FIN" statement. This told the computer that we have done all that I wanted, let's pack it up and go home.

I just returned from visiting with my 90+ year old aunt who has had a stroke. She will not eat, she is pretty much unresponsive and really just naps all the time.

Let me tell you about Nonie. She was the first of 3 children born to my grandparents in the early 1900. She worked for the railroad all of her life, well up until she retired. She was married early in life and was abandoned. She rebounded from that and then married her second husband after a courtship that lasted probably 30 years. Well they married after a special decree from the Pope and he died within a year or two.

She stayed unattached until she was in her mid 80s and then she met Lawrence. She moved to the same retirement village as Lawrence and within a couple of month he died.

Now if you read the above, you might think that Nonie would have a chip on her shoulder, she did not. She loved God, church, family and friends. She would laugh and cut up with anyone. Like all people her age she did have a cantankerous side, but she loved life. One day I will share the story of Nonie's Turtles.

Nonie would go on dates with my girlfriend, now wife, when we were dating. She was a Southern Baptist with Catholic overtones. She ordered wine on her grocery list every week and cooked a mean gumbo. She got her moneys worth out of every day until the stroke.

I was sitting with Nonie today and I wondered why we do not have @FIN buttons. We have figured out how to extend life to the point that all we are doing is waiting to die. Nonie is not happy and we are not happy for her. The Nonie that we knew left us a while back.

One day I am going to get the answer to my question, I just hope that I don't have to lay around for long before the one who is in charge, hits my @FIN.

But if I had to guess all of this is to get us ready to live the rest of our lives without our Nonie.