the Websters had left with Ben was the old skeleton key that opened the trunk. At first, Ben thought it was some kind of cruel joke, but upon reflection realized that he had never known this unusual couple to do anything without a purpose. If they had chosen to leave the key with Ben, there must have been a reason for doing so.
For many years Ben simply treated it as a good luck icon, carrying it with him as he travelled around the globe. This tangible connection to Daniel and Elizabeth helped to boost his confidence in what he was attempting to do. It was now clear, however, that the key was more than just a good luck charm. The Websters knew exactly what they were doing when they left him that key all those years ago. The only thing that remained unclear was why the Websters had chosen this day to deliver the trunk. Ben wasn’t even going to try to figure out how they could have known the actual date and address of his hotel room when they made whatever arrangements were necessary to ensure that the trunk reached him five decades in the future. There were some things in life that simply couldn’t be explained, and the Webster magic was one of them. Better just to accept it and carry on.
He’s surprised by how smoothly the key turns inside a lock mechanism that hasn’t been used for five decades. But why should he be surprised, he wonders—it would have been maintained by Daniel, a master mechanic. He would have ensured that it was stored in ideal conditions to prevent deterioration of any kind. Fifty years earlier, the trunk looked old and weathered, but today it doesn’t look any older than it did then. It was as though it had stopped aging on the day that the Websters left this world behind.
As he opens the lid, he is overcome by an olfactory-induced flood of memories: the familiar smells of Daniel’s auto repair shop and the aroma of incense that drifted from the house into the garage through the walkway. He closes his eyes and sees Daniel bent over the engine of his Toyota; there’s Max sprawled on the couch sleeping like a baby; Vic Parsons sits on a wicker chair near the aquarium, while Elizabeth offers nutritious treats to her guests. There was magic in that trunk, after all, he realizes.
He is jolted back to the present when he opens his eyes and sees a white envelope lying on top of the neat stack of file folders. Addressed simply to “The Messenger of Health,” it’s clipped to a folder labelled “Secret No. 12”. He quickly thumbs through the rest of the folders and discovers that each is labelled sequentially from “Secret No. 1” through “Secret No. 12.” Ben is astonished—for 50 years he has been teaching the world about the 11 secrets of wellness, as passed on to him by the Websters. It was the complete package: it offered a formula for a long and healthy life. What was missing? Why hadn’t they ever mentioned it to him? Perhaps they had left before they had finished passing on all of the secrets to their protégé. But they had never done anything by accident or left anything to chance. If there was a 12th secret, then he wasn’t meant to know about it until now. But why now?
He removes the folder, closes the trunk, then walks over to a comfortable chair in the corner of the room. He sits down, opens the envelope, and begins to read a letter that will fill in a very large gap in his life.
Chapter 2: Health Warning
Ben was a walking time bomb. When he walked into his doctor’s office at the age of 42, he was a prime candidate for a major heart attack, stroke, or any of a number of other debilitating middle-age diseases resulting from an adult lifestyle characterized by poor diet, physical inactivity, and way too much stress. He had been thinking of visiting his doctor for a physical examination, but hadn’t been able to fit it into his busy schedule. Even small warning signs alerting him to looming health problems had had no effect—Ben was always able to find an excuse to delay. He had been procrastinating on starting a weight-loss diet, on beginning an exercise program, on trying to spend more time with his family, and on starting to work less. Very soon, he kept telling himself, all of these good intentions would come to fruition.
Just how bad his condition had become was driven home to him forcefully when the elevator in his office building was temporarily out of order, and he decided to walk the two flights of stairs up to his next meeting. By the time he had finished climbing, his legs were burning, he was gasping for air, and his pulse was racing. He was uncomfortably aware that this was his first exercise of any kind in several weeks, maybe even months or years. It took almost an hour before he was able to breathe normally again and his legs stopped aching. This was a reality check that Ben was determined not to ignore.
On his way to work each day he often drove past men and women—many of them much older than he—running or cycling or power-walking. He used to brush them off as health nuts with too much spare time on their hands. Now he began to take a critical look at his own lifestyle—his workaholic habits, his rich restaurant meals (complete with drinks and dessert, all paid for by the company expense account), his complete lack of physical activity—and wondered who was the fanatic, and to what end. His “wellness epiphany” prompted him to pick up the phone and make an appointment to see his doctor. He wasn’t sure what he was going to find out, but he could guess, and the thought scared him. He knew then that his life was about to change in a big way.
Ben, once a high school athlete, was now easily 25 pounds overweight. Results of medical tests taken at his last doctor’s appointment revealed elevated cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, a high resting pulse rate, and a slow recovery rate after vigorous physical activity. In short, he was in much the same shape as more than half the population his age in North America—he may have been in good company, but it was small comfort to know that he wasn’t alone. As his doctor pointed out to him bluntly, he was another statistic waiting to happen. Unless he took steps to alter his lifestyle radically, it was only a matter of time until his lifestyle would alter him permanently.
Ben spent the next several days engaged in some serious soul-searching. On the one hand, he regretted letting his health decline for the sake of a career that really provided little satisfaction beyond a good salary. On the other hand, he felt fortunate that he had so far avoided any major health complications and had been offered an opportunity—perhaps a final one—to take control of his destiny. His family was still there for him, and that was the most important thing in the world. He was determined to make sure that he was there for them for a long time to come.
Ben had often heard about people going through a “mid-life crisis”, but dismissed the thought that it would ever happen to him. At this crossroads in his life, he now had to make a choice: do nothing and suffer the dangerous consequences, or take the opportunity to turn the situation into something positive. Without knowing how he was going to do it, Ben had already made the decision to turn his life around.
Making the decision to take action was the easy part. Ben had never been able to sit back and let others set the agenda. He had an innate ability to make the right choices on matters of critical importance. His decisions were always based on solid information, extensive research, and careful consideration. Ben was a born skeptic who instinctively looked at a situation from every possible perspective. He was a master at playing the devil’s advocate, but when he was confident that his position was solid, he didn’t hesitate to make the tough decisions. So far, his track record was unassailable.
Making a decision to change his life was less difficult than deciding how that change would take place. He had used his skills for many years in the corporate world to make sound business decisions. Now he had to turn those skills inward and make the most important decision of his life. The payoff this time would not be money—it was far more important than that. Ben was surprised to hear himself think that anything could be more important than earning another dollar, but he took it as a positive sign that his perspective was properly focused. He was back in familiar territory and confident that his skills and instincts would not let him down when he needed them most.
Ben left the doctor’s office concerned for his health and preoccupied with finding a way to turn his life around. The challenges
