Sprintman,
My mother suffered from an aneurysm, right side, and went through surgery for it in 1968. I was about nine, the oldest, and terrified that I'd lose my mother. (LBJ went on the air that night to announce he wouldn't run again). She was a few weeks short of her 40th birthday . . . Martin Luther King assasinated the week of the surgery, and she awakened me (as she had for years to watch the Gemini and Apollo footage) the night RFK died at the Ambassador in June as she healed. I was so very grateful my grandparents came out to be with us, my poor dad was working hard with his new company and was terribly torn.
We spent another Christmas together, all of us. this year. And though my mother is now 77 and increasingly frail from other problems, the aneurysm healed well and she has now spent 37 years on a few anti-convulsants (Tegretol, I believe; and some others) with but few problems.
She wasn't ever a smoker or a drinker. Besides, "cause and effect" are a lot more illusory than others would have us believe.
And 1968 was memorable in many ways: Mexico City, Paris, the turn-off to Vietnam. At nine I was glad to have an "outer" world to turn to, and the adults (likely relieved) to have something abstract to talk about.
I learned a few years back that I have a rare form of heart failure that has a poor and short prognosis. I am too weak to work on cars anymore (beyond the basics), had to sell my old '71 Chrysler (from same grandparents), and let the dealer do most of the work on my newly-acquired truck (and happy to plug Bob Madsen and DALLAS DODGE).
I have found that I enjoy the preparation and cooking of meals (with a few specialties to emphasize) as a bit of a substitute. I like to let the mind (now diminishing in power) wander through recipes, the history of food, (of the plants, etc; a bit of nature-wandering) . . and as I explained to my son a few days back, "Knowing I have a meal to prepare tomorrow gives the get-up-and-go that other pursuits once did".
I hope you'll give it a shot as I've seen you make several references to cooking. My wife has been -- mostly -- patient. I may make a recipe a time or two before serving it to others. In the meantime, it keeps me out of trouble (mentally/spiritually/emotionally), and is a new place for achievement (not the cars, nor any longer the garden). Round number #7 through #10 of my " A Traditional Texas Chili "(cooked Christmas Eve to serve with tamales; for nine persons at one house, and fourteen at our own) hit the jackpot.
My mother is prettty intrigued at the time I will spend, and the lengthy recipe requirements (though not so nearly as much as some; but, hey, I'm a BITOG'er); she called to wish me happy birthday yesterday (47 by the calendar, but 77 or so by the heart and such), and to say that she and my dad were having the chili again tonight back home in the Texas Hill Country.
I didn't catch the ages of your children, but find that the prep work is a nice time spent with them . . . should have seen my USMC son wearing swimming goggles at the kitchen table, cutting up 20-lbs of onions.
I know that "on-line" is no substitute for church, for social associations and the like, but it is a place where others we're not likely to meet sometimes admire and respect us anyway . . . here is my hat, to you, sir.