Here’s what they don’t tell you about getting old. You won’t be the first to die. Nor the second, fifth, eighth or perhaps even the 100th.

And that means that as you and everyone you know ages, you have more and more funerals and wakes to attend. And more gaps in your life left unfilled. This was a particularly difficult winter in that regard, which has led to lots of reflection.

On Feb. 9, a younger sister died at 81, and six weeks later, one of the people I most admired died at 78. You can imagine how the deaths of younger people hit me. The ensuing reflection and contemplation have moved me to head in a different direction.

My sister lived in what may be the worst place in America to be sick. Florida. When my late wife, Marilyn, was in hospital there with pneumonia, we were lucky to get her out alive. The hospital made me sign, twice, promises to fork over the copay before letting me visit her.

Back to my sister. When her body couldn’t process food, the docs removed a tumor. Gave her a schedule for chemotherapy and radiation. When she still couldn’t process food, the docs took a second look. “Oh, that’s terminal bladder cancer,” they concluded. She lived two more weeks.

I was at her bedside for a couple of days. She lost consciousness the day after I arrived, and the day after that was the 60th wedding anniversary for Elizabeth and Don.

Six weeks later, Carl Beck died. Carl owned C.O. Beck & Sons roofing in Waterville. We shared a love for University of Maine women’s basketball.

I’ll tell you just one story to show you why I always wanted to grow up to be like Carl. He bought Thanksgiving turkeys from us for his crew. It was a large order every year.

Marilyn and I couldn’t afford a standing-seam roof. Carl said he’d put on the roof and take it out in turkeys. For two years, I wrote a receipt for the value of turkeys. The third year, we had paid for less than two-thirds of the roof when Carl came with a check to pick up the turkeys. “I still owe you, Carl, so put away the check,” I told him.

“No, he said, I looked at my records, and you’re all paid up.” He hadn’t, and I wasn’t. But Carl insisted, and I accepted the check. At the time, Carl was a three-time cancer survivor. He beat cancer twice more, but a stroke finally felled him. When Marilyn was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Carl visited her several times, comparing notes about cancer and what to expect next.

This reflection has led me to signing off on my column. Except for two breaks, one when I had another job and one when I was running for the Legislature, I’ve been writing for nearly seven years in the Sun Journal. I have missed three columns. One when I was at my sister’s deathbed and two spiked by the editor.

I’m not done writing, but I’m changing lanes. I have two books in mind and have been slowly, too slowly, working on one, a compilation of my columns, opting for those with long shelf life.

The other is a memoir. I have lived an incredibly interesting 84 years. Especially considering that when I was 10, my father put a gun to his head, leaving my mother a widow with five kids.

I lived in the largest city in each of two countries, New York and Montreal. Other cities, too. Los Angeles: didn’t like it; Nashville: loved it but was too busy with grad school; Boston: OK; Kansas City: one of America’s most beautiful cities, where Marilyn and I began marriage.

And out here in the country, in New Sharon, where I have lived more than half my life and plan to live the rest of it. We came as back-to-the-landers, and I have returned to that origin as a gardener after 30 years raising turkeys. I raise about 90% of my vegetables for the year.

I have lived much of my life as a minority, despite being as white-bread male as can be. I was a Yankee in Tennessee, a white boy in Harlem, an Anglophone in Quebec, a flatlander in Maine.

I won election to public office four times, lost twice. I taught at two major universities, Miami of Ohio and the University of Maine.

I have held nearly every job in the newsroom. Bureau reporter, suburban editor, copy desk, editorial page editor, women’s pages editor, national (or news) editor, metropolitan editor overseeing all reporters and city-side editors. The demise of the print newspaper is a huge sadness.

As a journalist, I had a front-row seat on history. I interviewed Jimmy Carter, then governor of Georgia; Tom T. Hall (“The Year Clayton Delaney Died”); George Carlin (“Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television”); and Andrew Young, Georgia’s first Black U.S. representative.

I was in the room with the top editors from seven newspapers — yes, Montreal had seven dailies in 1976 — when we learned the separatist party, the Parti Quebecois, would win a referendum and try to dismantle Canada. Fortunately, it didn’t finish.

The demands of writing a weekly column get in the way of other writing. And, frankly, I could earn two to five times more per hour at McDonald’s. And lots of minimum-wage employers are hiring us seniors.

I’m looking for work that will replace the money, which ends next year, I’m now getting from selling my farm and leave time to complete my writing projects.

Bob Neal won’t miss the deadlines of writing every week. But he will miss the folks who stop on the street or write to say they like the columns. He says back to them, “Thank You.” Neal can be reached at [email protected].