The Fourth Quarter Begins

By Michael Patrick O’Brien–

The eight billion of us who cling to this giant spinning orb called earth like round numbers that match our round world. We set lunch appointments at 12 noon, not 12:07 p.m. We ask our friends to lend us ten bucks, not $9.93. And at certain rounded intervals, we make special note of our initial arrival here. My friends and family reminded me of this numerical affinity during the recent celebration of my 60th birthday.

Sixty years of life probably begs many questions, but most obviously this one: how many more years might follow? Of course, there is no real answer to that question. The best response I know comes from Matthew 25:13—“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

Despite the utter uncertainty of our existential tenure, genealogy does provide some tantalizing clues. Setting aside actuarial life tables, which I have never really understood anyway, nothing paints a better picture of the possible details of your own demise than your ancestors’ death certificates. My own research on this topic suggests I have a decent chance to live past 70, but that making it past 80 probably is a long shot (see: Will we live longer than our parents?).

A conjectural lifespan of 1 to 80 is handy for several reasons. It allows for some interesting introspection using both rounded numbers and two of my favorite spectator sports—football and basketball. In other words, I now can envision and understand my life in four distinct quarters.

On my 20th birthday, at the end of the first quarter, life was all about opportunity, mystery, and possibility. I had just finished my sophomore year at the University of Notre Dame. I had no inkling of what work I would do, who/when/if I would marry, or whether I’d have children. In fact, I probably was much more interested in reaching my 21st birthday, that magical anniversary of trips around the sun after which you can go into bars and drink beer legally.

My 40th birthday marked halftime. By then I had a vocation, job, spouse, responsibilities, and three great kids. My family threw a surprise party for me. I suspected something like that might be afoot when my adorable three year old son Danny innocently asked me, “Dad, IF you were to have a birthday party, what kind of food would you like to eat?” The surprise party was the last of my major birthday celebrations that my mother attended. She passed away just six years later.

During the third quarter that followed the big surprise party, my children transformed from cute little kids into wonderful adult progeny. Now they have their own possibilities, pathways, degrees, jobs, troubles, joys, heartaches, and even…children. For better and worse, I get to share in each of those things to some degree (see: The Pieta and the curse of parenthood).

So with my 60th birthday, the fourth quarter now begins. What might the next 20 or so years bring?

The Washington Post provides a rather dismal outlook. A few weeks ago the newspaper reported that the United States National Intelligence Council released its forecast for the next two decades. The article summarized the Council’s conclusions as follows: “Looking over the time horizon, it finds a world unsettled by the coronavirus pandemic, the ravages of climate change—which will propel mass migration—and a widening gap between what people demand from their leaders and what they can actually deliver.”

I realize that my own personal fourth quarter will bring decline, uncertainty, loss, health problems, and pain. I anticipate these with some trepidation. Our first and best teachers are our parents, and the last lesson our parents teach us is how to die. Certainly that was true of my mother, who lived to be almost 77, and my father, who died at the relatively young age of 61.

Yet, there are other lessons we can learn from our aging parents too. Mom’s life was unsettled, and even tumultuous in every quarter, but she probably enjoyed her most peaceful and serene times during her final quarter. She was relatively stable economically then, thanks in part to her diligent savings and help from her children. And she loved, loved, loved being a grandmother.

The Irish seem relatively philosophical about this whole aging thing. One Irish blessing hopes we will live to comb gray hair. Another one observes that every day above ground is a good day. From this vantage point, it might seem ungrateful to reach that milestone 60th birthday without acknowledging the many others who never even got that far.

This list includes Abraham Lincoln (died at age 56), my great grandfather Edward W. O’Brien (died at 25, see: My Irish Grandfather confronts the Captain of Death), Mozart (35), John Lennon (40), and Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old refugee whose body washed up on a Turkish beach after he drowned in September 2015 in the Mediterranean Sea along with his mother and brother. Life should be celebrated for death lurks just around the corner.

The Washington Post article identified another interesting prediction from the United States National Intelligence Council: “Ultimately, the societies that succeed will be those that can adapt to change…” Evolution is a useful elixir for life on the micro level too.

As a result, I shall try—probably with mixed results—to adapt to the many changes that will accompany the final quarter of life. Maybe some semblance of grandfatherly wisdom and dignity will emerge to guide me along the way. I pray, in other words, to age gracefully, keeping in mind the great virtues identified by St. Paul: faith, hope, and love.

There also is a reasonable chance, however, that as the end of the fourth quarter draws near, some part of me will yearn, and even dare to hope, for a little bit of overtime.

*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, will be published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021.