Broken bones and a broken heart

Today is Father's Day and I drove to South Carolina on Thursday to visit my parents. I was looking forward to a special luncheon with my mother, and then celebrating Father's Day.
The weekend I planned was not the weekend I got.
On Friday, as my mother and I were just starting our luncheon, my father fell off a ladder while pruning a tree at the house, breaking his left wrist and fracturing his left pelvis.
Mom got the call he'd been hurt and we had our lunch packed in a box -- didn't even get to eat -- and drove straight to the emergency room of the local hospital.
My father will recover, but it will be a slow process, and will be difficult for such an athletic, active man.
Let me explain. My 72-year-old father does not look or act like your typical 72-year-old man. He is an avid cyclist and has been for years. He looks at least 10 years younger.
Here's a photo of us from about 10 years ago on vacation in Florida. He doesn't look like he's in his 60s there, does he?

Dad and Lisa at Treasure Island, Fla.

He rides 35 to 40 miles about three times a week. He's done numerous century rides, covering 100 miles in a day. In the early 1990s, he did an East Coast ride, starting in Maine and finishing in Florida in three weeks.
My father started jogging first, in the 1970s, when jogging really started to take off, but trouble with his knees put him on a bike. He keeps telling me that one day I'll be on a bike, too.
He takes an interest in my running, asking me about my races, how I'm doing with my running.
So to see my father flat on his back in a hospital bed, unable to sit up, roll onto his side, or get out of the bed, breaks my heart. I have always known him to be so strong, so active, so athletic.
It is shocking, for me, to see him so vulnerable. I was looking at his hands in the hospital room and suddenly realized they are the hands of an older man. Not a 40- or 50- or even 60-year-old man. And it scared me.
It scared me because it made me realize my parents are getting older. I feel young, so I just feel they are young, too.
And so, I am a little heart broken today to realize my parents, like me, are getting older.