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RICK MacLEAN: Life has two stages: youth, and not-youth

New Brunswick composer and Oscar winner, Terry Gadsden led a remarkable life

You don’t know Terry. But you know his music. It would difficult not to. Especially if you’re of a certain age and remember watching shows like Melrose Place, Montel Williams and Sesame Street on television.

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His music was in all of them.

My friend and neighbour Terry Gadsden died this month. He was six months short of his 83rd birthday.

I suppose it’s another one of those realities you face when you round some invisible corner in your life. Slowly, but surely, obituaries become part of your regular news cycle.

Someone asked me about aging this past week and I said there are, so far as I can figure it after nearly 69 years, two stages to life. Youth. And not-youth.

I got a strange look.

“Youth,” I said, “is that part of your life when you take your health for granted. You make plans without giving a thought to whether or not you’ll be well enough to do something. You just assume it’ll be fine and plow ahead.”

“Not-youth is the rest of your life. When aches and pains, and worse, force you to come up with a Plan B, just in case a health issue steps in and fouls up Plan A.”

It’s not about age. It’s about the basic assumption you make each day when you wake up. Some people are........

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