What It Means to See 73 (When You Never Thought You Would)

Dear Son,

Today’s my birthday.

Seventy-three.

That number still feels strange when I say it out loud. Not because I’m trying to stay young, but because there was a time—more than one, actually—when I didn’t think I’d see it.

I drank for over 25 years before I stopped.

Smoked a couple decades before I quit that, too.
Lived hard. Burned bridges. Numbed pain.
Mis…