Saturday, January 24, 1998

If we wait 'til tomorrow, we defy life, not death

By Ken Garfield / Knight Ridder Newspapers

David Crowder was a man in his 40s who worked hard, loved his family and attended church. He was a middle-age guy not so different from the rest of us middle-age guys.

Crowder, a prominent Charlotte, N.C., banker, died early on the morning of Jan. 3. He had watched Nebraska pummel Tennessee the night before in the Orange Bowl. Unable to sleep because of a burning feeling Ñ maybe it was the popcorn at 10 p.m., he thought Ñ he decided to sit up in the den.

His wife, Linda, awoke the next morning and found him dead in a wingback chair, a blanket in his lap. It was cardiac arrest. Doctors believe he went quickly, probably in his sleep. He was 46.

He leaves behind a wife and three teen-age children for whom he always made time, colleagues at BB&T who admired his quiet intensity, and friends at St. John's Baptist Church who appreciated his devotion and leadership.

He also leaves behind men in their 40s who felt a chill when they learned of his death.

We live like David Crowder lived. Many of us journey through the days wondering in the back of our hearts and minds whether we'll die like he died, at middle age, watching TV in an easy chair.

Charlotte cardiologist Tyson Bennett sees it all the time Ñ men who come to his office oozing 40-something angst.

A friend of Crowder's came in soon after the death, pushed to the doctor not just by a cholesterol problem but by fear brought on by the news. "It makes them stop and think," Bennett said.

It should Ñ heart disease kills more than 350,000 men a year.

Bennett explores each patient's medical history. He looks for smoking, high blood pressure, overeating and overwork. He'll gently push people to get their priorities straight, to realize that simply walking two miles a day every other day could lengthen your life.

But even a cardiologist knows what the rest of us know. No one is immune from an untimely death. Linda Crowder told me her husband exercised, played golf and took aspirin each day for his heart. He wasn't one of those workaholics who called home from the bank and said start supper without him.

And still he died, just like that.

Barely a day goes by that I don't hear about another David Crowder dying. As I write this piece, a friend called to say his 50-something brother just dropped dead on the racquetball court.

You probably get the same calls. You probably get the same shiver up the spine. You probably wonder, as I do: How do you handle life at middle age, when worries of death seem to lurk like a prowler in the night?

I appreciate Dr. Bennett's answer. Watch what you eat. Take a walk. Take a vacation. Take care not to sweat the small stuff. Slow down and relax enough to enjoy whatever fills your life.

I also appreciate the answer that the Rev. Richard Kremer offered at Crowder's funeral. He told 700 who packed the St. John's Baptist sanctuary that tomorrow isn't promised: "Each day is a precious and fragile gift of grace and we had best relish and employ it to the fullest, even as David did."

Kremer went deeper. Death, he told the tear-stained congregation, doesn't just come when your heart stops beating. Dying comes when you quit using your heart to feel all the joys that life can hold.

"Unless we die a little bit every day, unless we give a bit of ourselves away in love every day," Kremer preached, "our God-given gifts will never flower, our lives will never be fruitful."

Excuse me, then, while I leave behind my worries about death. I want to go die a little in the arms of my family, for however long is left. David Crowder drove me to it.

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(Ken Garfield is the religion editor at The Charlotte Observer. Write to him at: The Charlotte Observer, 600 S. Tryon St., Charlotte, NC 28232.)

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(c) 1998, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.). Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.