A long drive, a short visit, and fate

It's not supposed to happen like this. When I met Punky Morton in the fall of 1963, we were high school freshmen thrown together in a series of classes ranging from physical education to physical science. President Kennedy would be assassinated a couple of months later, but we were teenagers, and we thought we would live forever.

We lost a classmate to a traffic accident a year or two later; another classmate, facing the vicissitudes of his middle-30s, committed suicide; another's heart failed 20 years later. But at high school reunions, we were still teenagers at heart, still invulnerable, like Superman.

I spent the day Wednesday on a 370-mile round trip to see Punky, no longer the 14-year-old geeky, smart kid I met 45 years ago. Until Friday the 13th of June, he had been all he wanted to be —successful, an "N-Vent-R" (according to his license plate), a world traveler, a problem solver, a business owner, a husband, stepfather and step-grandfather. That morning, he awoke to an odd feeling of numbness in his left leg. The numbness spread to his left arm. Tests revealed a tumor atop the brain stem. Further tests confirmed it was aggressively growing and inoperable.

When I first called him after receiving the news, he was determined and optimistic. He was doing his own research on brain tumors and treatments. He was confident that he'd find a way, just as he had found a way to solve engineering and electronic problems. When I saw him Wednesday, he was propped up in bed, no longer optimistic but resigned to the fact that he had at last encountered a problem even he couldn't untangle. We smiled at memories, laughed at youthful shenanigans and teared up over the cruelty of fate and the wonder of blessings never earned. He has reached that level of acceptance that allows him to look back on all that he has done, all that he has achieved, the 59 countries he has visited, the 20,000 products he has developed, the patents he holds, the company he has founded, the people he has met, and he concludes: "I've had a wonderful life."

He lists his one regret: Another 30 years' worth of ideas are in his head, and he might not be able to turn them into reality. It's a life too short.

In the Frank Capra classic, it took a crisis and an angel to show George Bailey that he had lived "A Wonderful Life." Punky already knew his life had been wonderful, but, like George Bailey, he had not known just how many friends he had or how much he was loved. Few of us are granted that knowledge in this life. Now he knows.