grief

Some Senior Things

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These aren’t complaints, just observations. If you’re old, they can help, and if you’re young, they can both inform you about what it means to be old* and give you a glimpse of your future…if you’re lucky.

Months ago, I recommended Dollar Store reading glasses strategically** placed all over the house and your car so you’d always have a pair at hand. My personal record is 10 pair. Of note, they are now $1.25 apiece. Damn you, Biden***. The Dollar Store has not changed their name, by the way.  They ought to. As a new hint, do the same with magnifying glasses. Not sure what they cost, now, but most corporations are run by perfectly sighted young people who seem intent on making important product information on labels as small as possible. A recent bout with a room air freshener concerned small black type over a dark red background. It was so hard to read I needed my Jewelers’ Loupe. Look it up, they are invaluable but won’t be found in the Dollar Store. Also, you won’t need 10 of them, two or three will do unless you do a lot of package content reading in the bathroom. And you certainly won’t need one while you’re driving.

To all of us, stop trying to tell everyone else about how bad our life is. I’ve noticed a disturbing trait, lately, among us old people: Condition Competition. As a veteran of malady management, myself, it’s hard to not want everyone to know how well you did, if you did well, and how bad you’re doing if you didn’t. Since young people never listen to us, we seem to be using each other for these reports. And as we solemnly detail our struggles, it hurts to hear back from the listener a litany of troubles worse than our own. Trust me. As I recently began regaling a conversational partner about winning skirmishes against cancer, AMD, and arthritis, he countered with a double-lung transplant at age 18, followed by the loss of both parents in an accident a year later. Well played, sir. My options were to lie or retreat to complain another day, and hope for someone less well-off. Remember, seniors: sonder.****

The Loss of Things is a never-ending affliction which can be managed if one remembers it is the natural way of life. I’ve been fortunate to lose things slowly and incrementally, the best way to lose them since you never really know they are gone until you sit down and write about it. See? This is healthy, right? Vision is the obvious thing to illustrate this phenomenon. As noted in the first paragraph, my vision is slowly and incrementally (SI) fading into the sunset. It’s hard to imagine going blind in one fell, swoop, so thank your lucky stars if SI is the way your best traits go. SI effects everything: hair, libido, athletic ability, mental acuity.  Everything except toenails. Note to young entrepreneurs: invent a way to stop toenails from growing or a liquid that makes them fall off. A liquid preferably applied with a long stick.

Always look for flat, level, ground. This is a hard one, especially with bad vision, but no fall is worse than the one you do in public simply because a small incline or decline suddenly appeared under your feet. Sad to admit it, but “Training Wheels” for seniors might not be a bad idea, if we could get seniors to admit–and commit– to using them. So far, my only concession to a sudden change in position is a google watch with a built-in fall sensor. If I drop and can respond in 15 seconds, there’s still a chance to regain some dignity. If I don’t answer in 15 seconds, it calls 911 and all bets are off. This is also helpful if you live alone and die. My apartment property maintenance man said this when asked how he would know if someone was dead in my beautiful but one bedroom apartment: “It would smell. Eventually.”

Maybe seniors shouldn’t buy any more air fresheners.

And make sure your google watches are fully charged.

            *Be nice to your Grandparents!

            **As opposed to haphazardly placed. Or willy-nilly placed

            ***And Trump, and Musk, and Bezos, and everyone else responsible.

            ****Ai it.

 Death. Death. Death. Death. Not again…

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It’s typed four times in clearly readable Calibri* because typing it three times didn’t make the word sound as ridiculous as it should. Say it four times really, really fast…you’ll get an idea of how strange it is to worry about The Word. We accept a lot of things in life out of our control, why is “that one” any different? If I was 6 feet 8 inches I’d be a retired, rich former NBA basketball star, in the Hall of Fame. Being normal height hasn’t made me fall on the floor lamenting and grieving.

In “Slaughterhouse 5”, Kurt Vonnegut introduces the Tralfamadorians who view death as simple transport, a journey to another place, a minor station in life. Their view is life is never-ending since they exist in 26 dimensions representing all stages of their lives, and they can transport into any stage at any time. Want to revisit your gestation? No problem. Death? Only take a second, unless you want to stay longer. Any time in any individual life is always being played out in some dimension, somewhere, sometime. Death is merely another pearl in a necklace to be enjoyed, admired, and revisited. Neat, right?

Philosophy, science, and science fiction are not as far apart as the rational among us might think.  Learned and tamed Quantum Entanglement could explain the mechanics of the Tralfamadorian dimension travel, for example. But it might be wise to not expose young minds to any of these thoughts, as they leave a lasting impression with sometimes controversial side effects. Billy Pilgrim’s story of travels to his other dimensions was learned when I was 16, when death was not only unnecessary to consider, but touching life anyway, with car accidents, drugs, and the Viet Nam war…in the 1960’s dimension.

It isn’t any pedantic puzzle to solve, then, how an attitude towards death can be skewed, and become slightly comic. Sure, death is inevitable, and could come suddenly, but so what? If we simply move to another dimension, what’s the problem? In religious arguments with all sects, it was the same question: if the dead are actually going to the heaven you describe, why are we sad for them?

From then on, at funerals, I was a reasonably handsome, silent man in a nice suit with tissues in every pocket. The paper product’s sole purpose was to allow grief to transfer from the breaking hearts of grieving widows, mothers, daughters, sisters, and anyone else, to those flimsy papers, then the pockets, and finally, disposal. Rarely were more words than these exchanged: “It’s so nice of you to be here for______.” Accidents, the unlucky military draft, and suicides caused the scene to be repeated often and ended with a final straw**, the death of mom. I didn’t need to be the strong silent Man With Tissues. Where she was going would be a lot better than where she’d been. I was happy for her.

It’s easy to understand grief and loss surrounding death. They have been companions often, but when Death suddenly appears, the theory or assumed reality of where the dead are going should outweigh any selfish sense of loss, shouldn’t it? If given a choice, especially for eternity, we’d all choose heaven instead of sticking around to keep relatives and loved ones from crying. Wouldn’t we? Wait, if everyone went to heaven…

It’s hard to see how the medical world fits into a discussion of death. When doctors cure cancer, it is only a temporary victory, a battle won even though the war will be lost. Is our happiness for the cure and few extra years really that big a deal? It helps to wonder about what would have happened if the world never became “developed”, and we lived the laws of nature, not medicine and man. Is living with someone else’s heart, for example, worth it? Is donating your organs to someone else your goal in life?

Only until we know for sure, only until we have made that journey, it’s open season on end-of-life issues and we will discuss them forever, by ourselves or our progeny.

Conclusion: The journey matters. Not The End. Say it four times really, really fast.

Final note: The Calamities of the past three years stress-tested the opinions expressed in this post. Winning the battle rang the bell that saved them for another round. Can’t wait to see what’s next.***

And apologies for bringing this subject up for the umpteenth time. It’s not my fault if people keep dying.

PS Looked it up and the last time you were lectured about Death was January 11, 2026, when Bob Weir died, a Grateful Dead. See? It’s not my fault.

*Which the wordpress gods will change to New Times Roman.

**There is never a “Final Straw”. And loss never ends.

***Sarcasm?

Death Again, Sorry, At Least It’s Not Mine

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Aw, death.  It comes for thee, blah blah blah. Articles, movies, songs, pole dancers*, all die, so why we talking** about it, again? Haven’t we beat this subject to…death. Hm.

            There are deaths that seem natural and even poetic, almost hard to grieve over. The 84-year-old husband who dies days after his wife. The young, inspirational woman who loses a valiant, public battle with her cancer to raise awareness for the disease. The man who lay on top of his kids at a school shooting to save the kids’ lives.

Most of us, however, will die a normal, semi-private, wish-we-had-more-time death, hopefully with loved ones near, if not right there, at the moment it happens. Maybe we will have advanced notice or maybe we won’t. Meh, that’s life. Death, death. Or more accurately, that is life and death, or…let’s move on.

There are also the “surprising” deaths, like your favorite sports star dying in a plane crash. Or your co-worker dying in a car crash. Both lead to this statement: “I just saw (fill in any name) yesterday”, often with the added “(Name) looked great.”

As interesting as the many different ways death presents itself is, rather than list them all, we’ll talk about the one just learned today. It’s a situation probably only experienced by seniors, but you decide.

Bob Weir died. Anything? He mean anything to you? No? He didn’t to me, either…at first. I passed over the headline and moved on to more interesting and personal stuff in the news this morning. There was also breakfast, opening the blinds, bathroom duty, other tasks, and Bob Weir. To shorten a long story, it took about an hour for Bob Weir to work his way through the detritus of hoarded memory, shake off the dust, and explode into the front of my brain. I was never a Grateful Dead (Ironic?) Head. (You do know the Grateful Dead, right? If not, I’ll continue, anyway, and not mention the “g” word.) it was hard to be a living person in the 60 and 70s, though, and not know some of their songs and at least 3,438 of their rabid fans., The Dead Heads. My lack of even partial commitment to the rabid fandom was probably because The Grateful Dead’s best work was done live, in concerts…crowds that cost money. I hated crowds and hated spending money to be in them.

In 1972, The Dead cunningly put out a triple record live album, recorded in Europe. So, an American band defies current marketing rigor and puts out a THREE RECORD album of almost their entire Spring concert work in Europe. No hit singles. No influencers chirping about it. No late-night talk show publicity. Just BANG, here’s a three-record set of our best work. Deal with it. It was in 1973, in Mike’s parents’ attic, with speakers up to the eaves, no adults home, a dime bag on the coffee table, and four quarts of Boones Farm wine, when I finally learned the reason for the Dead Head Fan Club. And it happened with no crowd, no entry fee, since Mike bought both the album and “refreshments”, and no “Turn that shite down!” scream from the ground floor. It was heaven on earth. 

It didn’t make me turn all gooey or anything, and it never led to my purchase of anything the Dead did, but the music, the musicianship, and the time was extraordinary. And I learned band members names. We did the same show nearly every night for a month, until my friend’s parents came home and then…life. No more Dead for me. I never listened to any of those three records again. I married several times, had kids, never turned the volume of anything up over halfway, and got on with life, allowing the Month of The Dead to deposit itself into a long-term memory folder to be filed away alphabetically, presumably.

Until Bob Weir died.

Some long-term memories we don’t remember until a really, really hard jabbing*** with something pointy. Like death.

The Month of The Dead in 1973, is hereby officially remembered, recognized and celebrated as A Special Time in A Good Life, and is added to my google calendar so it won’t be forgotten, again. Thank you for dying Grateful Dead guitarist and founder, Bob Weir. We hardly knew you but will never forget you.

Amen.

            *Just checking to see if you’re actually reading.

            **Ai grammar police say this should be: “why ARE we talking”. Feck them.

            ***Ai: “make this wording more concise.” Me: Devour feculence, Ai.

Death as an Equation

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Several past posts have been about The D Word, but this post will be more objective, less emotional, almost dry, in discussing the impact of Death.

In youth, there was lots of death (sic). Pets died, farm animals died, insects got squashed, and fish got caught…and eaten. Very few of those deaths were looked at as Death (sic). Insects don’t deserve to live, anyway, and pets, well, pets came and went. Many dogs and cats wandered off the farm never to be seen again. Often, we’d find bones in the farm fields but never made any connection. At least the adults said there wasn’t any. The only emotional loss on the farm was when we shipped a favorite calf or piglet to the slaughterhouse, and as young’uns we didn’t actually knew what it meant at the time.

The facts of life don’t take long to be revealed, however, and around the eighth grade an emotion surfaced in talking about Death. What happened to Uncle Carl was defined as “passing”, per mom. It was her brother and a favorite uncle. He smoked cigarettes from packs rolled up in his tee shirt sleeves, drank, used hair product, and liked to lean on the hood of his convertible. In the 1950s and 60. He visited the farm regularly and called me “Sport”. When he stopped coming, it was weeks before I asked mom. She set me and my brother on the couch and announced “Carl won’t be coming anymore”, and as we kids pondered what we did wrong she added, “He has passed on.”

Death made itself known eventually, and we had some disagreements, but I came to understand and accepted it which was easy since my death was so far away. An early and now long-gone girlfriend said I was a great comfort at funerals. As a big, strong, quiet man woman liked to cry on me, no matter their age.

Now, an approaching Death needs to be an arbitrary factor in equations and discussions about End of Life. Input all known variables and solve for X. The word death meant nothing to the young mind and now means nothing to the old mind. In fact, Death, now, is simply the next event, the next inevitable stage of Life. Some of those were turning 13, turning 16, kissing a girl (thanks Cousin Debbie), buying beer, college, marriage, kids, marriage again, marriage again (Yes, sadly, not a typo), grandkids, and retirement. These were most of the major events looked forward to and anticipated. The first beer, by the way, was so bad, how could anyone drink it?

But beer might help with Death, if you think about it. I love beer, now, so maybe, after death…?

Naw. The equation aspect of death is a result of living. When someone near my age dies, and when someone older than me dies, there are two different equations: How much longer than the former have I lived, and do I have as much time left, as the latter. I’ve mentioned before, the age of Death and how it had to be determined for End of Life Financial Planning. Mine is 84, the age mom died. Dad died at 51, so…

The Death Equation became harder to solve when The Calamities hit. They skewed the values of certain parts of the formula, at one point even suggested a final solution, variables be damned. In sharing my experiences with friends/cohorts in my age group, it seems we all suffer something, eventually, and don’t know what to do about it. Sharing experiences has a warning implied, and several cohorts have learned of a new calamity thanks to the exposing of someone else’s old one. I learned about my new calamity, one I never would have suspected, from the reported trials of a friend in Florida.

Another friend has a better description of the equation: we are all old cars. Any car lover worth his clicking torque wrench knows there comes a time when it doesn’t make any sense to repair an old car. You fix one thing, and something else fails. Just let it go.

A recent afternoon text back and forth with a friend whose PSA is over 4 was about the worst calamity to get in old age. My choice: Cognitive Impairment (CI). Cancer, Arthritis, AMD, none seem as bad as CI. But later, as I thought about all this, I asked myself: what if I had Ci, would I not have Death to think about?

No one knows. Or at least has ever mentioned anything.

Maybe I’ll look up that Psychic I dated in the 70s…as long as she doesn’t mention marriage, again…

Pets and Grief…maybe

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I can sunbathe from my second-floor balcony. I have not had a pet in over 14 months.

You may take a few minutes to try in–your own mind–to make a nice, human story from those two statements.

Okay. Times up. When sunbathing, I am not afraid to show my aging body but aware there may be some weak stomachs if too much skin is made available for public viewing. Fortunately, the sun shines into my apartment from the balcony at certain times of the day so there is a way to be secretly nudish (sic), appreciate the sun, and ensure innocent eyes don’t suffer retinal damage: keeping my balcony door open.

Sidebar: For the thirteen months I’ve inhabited a second-floor loft in Rome, NY, not one bug has been noticed at, near, or in my apartment. They do not even bang against the large windows or get caught in the screens, even when the windows are open and allow a beautifully breezy flow of clear, clean, upstate NY air. It is welcome relief from the south where bugs are frequently co-habitants and often big enough to be paying rent. An open window in the south is an invitation for a collection of creatures wondering if they can enter, and they often do, somehow. And in shifts with night-time arthropods arriving after the daytime hexapods retire after a long day. The arachnids (spiders) were welcomed, however, and their full webs were applauded each morning, until one decided–without invitation–to be a house pet. And one morning there was a praying mantis trying to unlock my car door, True story, he/she was huge.

So. One beautiful, unexpected spring day while sunbathing with the balcony door open and my physical form hidden from prying eyes (you know who you are!), it was with little fanfare and–certainly no invitation–that a big, fat fly buzzed into the apartment, zooming right over my astonished head and off into the very bowels of the previously insect free living space. You all know how they buzz, letting you know they are there, somewhere you can’t find them. Somewhere they are secretly doing what they do. Flies. Annoying little basta%$#s.

He/She/It was fat and fast, buzzing and zooming all over, but never back through the conveniently open balcony door. I chased It with a book, a broom, a towel, and eventually sat, exhausted, in the chair after an hour of high-level, video-game pursuit.

And it landed in my lap. I struck my lap hard with the palm of my hand as It flitted away, back to the kitchen area. It was during the ensuing respite from humiliation and physical exertion that I ruminated on the fact my solitary existence in the apartment was often a cause for loneliness as my dog, Charlie, and cat Maxine, were left behind in North Carolina, The Calamities making me unfit to be the animals’ parents until such time as chasing after them was a possibility. (But I could still type a long sentence.) Missed were the big, brown, loving eyes, of Charlie and the baleful stare of Maxine as she struggled with how to do away with me and still get fed. Like most pet owners, what is missed the most is talking with them. Just knowing they are there.

Long story short, I adopted the big, fat, uninvited fly as my new pet. I decided he was a male, but did not do any research to corroborate the fact. How would one do that, anyway? (google: do flies have sex.) Naming him was easy: Jeff, after Jeff Goldblum, the actor in the 1986 science fiction classic film “The Fly”. Technically, Mr. Goldblum’s first name is Jeffrey, so Jeffrey became my new pet. Not only did I talk to Jeffrey but I’m sure he talked back, in his own way. For example, he frequently joined me in the bathroom when I did my ablutions, keeping a discreet distance while resting in the tub, waiting. We played together, too, chasing each other around the apartment. Google the song “My Best Friend” by Harry Nillsson for an example of how close a man and his fly can become.

Sadly, when this story was told to local human friends, they all said the same thing: “Don’t ever tell anyone else this story.”

So here it is, in its mostly true form.

Epilogue: Our friendship lasted several warm, spring days, but when it got cooler things changed. Jeffrey was indifferent, lackadaisical and didn’t want to play anymore. One afternoon upon returning from an appointment, my opening of the apartment door revealed Jeffrey on his back on my kitchen counter, all six legs pointing to the ceiling. Even in the end he was considerate, dying in plain sight and easily brushed into the garbage. He’d given me the best of his 15-30 days on this earth. Oddly, the same friends who warned me about telling this story upbraided me for unceremoniously disposing of him. Was I supposed to give Jeffrey a funeral?

He was just a fly.

Personal Things. Look Away, if you can

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Older friends have been lamenting being older. Whenever I’m around these conversations…well…

But you can’t change life simply by ignoring it. It is true we change as we age. And especially if we want the impossible: to be left alone and never grow old.

Sadly, the only solution is to not be around “older friends.”

But younger friends…well…

This past Easter was spent with family around the table. Not one was within 20 years of my age. Conversations swirled around things and ideas I’d either never heard of or heard of over 50 years ago. The constant juxtaposition was astounding. It created a hole in the fabric of conversational time where my contributions appeared irrelevant, meaningless, unimportant, and so, unspoken. It was as if there was nothing to offer.

But…so what?

As a young man I never thought I was the center of the universe, but I did matter. Life progressed, things happened, and then life started to wind down. As the “winding down” happened, life was adjusted, tweaked, re-defined, but in small increments. It was healthy, like eating broccoli in small bites. Anywhere the body was, the body adjusted and found ways to exist with some measure of happiness. Purpose, fate, bad luck, God, none of it was ever questioned for a purpose or an expected explanation. The main reason for the acceptance of change was there was lots more time to live, lots more to accept, lots more to adjust to…years more opportunity for hope and improvement.

So, imagine the surprise when you suddenly realize there is no longer “lots more time to live”.

This isn’t about death. For us as young people, death is a far-off rumor with an import never understood until you can figuratively see the whites of its eyes, and the realization it is inevitable takes a little of the sting out of the realization it might be here. And we hope it’s happening is a peaceful event.

But…does it sound like fun wondering if Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) will eventually make you blind and unable to curse the Yankees? Or if a small muscle in the anus (the sphincter) will stop working and make diapers a part of your old age fashion? Is “dribbling” in your future? (Look it up, but for the “non-sports” definition.) Will the bad kind of plaque (Oxford’s good definition: “an ornamental tablet, fixed to a wall in commemoration of a person or event.”) render all these worries moot? Cognitive impairment: a blessing in disguise? Who knew? Even worse, under a certain age who ever thought about it?

Death, then, is not feared as much as slowly, incrementally, dying.

As young people we may have accepted the inevitability of death, but did anything or anyone ever prepare us for the inevitability of “dying”, losing parts of ourselves as if on some sinister, sad, stupid schedule? And without “lots more time to live”?

Give me death when it’s my time but please, fate, stop chipping away at life. I’ll die in peace, without complaint, if God will let me, but if there are other plans, that “schedule”…I’d rather not know.

Crap. That means avoiding old folks who want to talk about it.

Eh. I can live with it. At least until the damn beta-amyloid builds up.**

** Hope you researched the correct “plaque”.

Death? Again? Noooo….

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I’m having lots of trouble sleeping. You? The mind races with thoughts about SAD, Trump, America, Social Security, Medicare, apartments, homes, health, and an ex-girlfriend whose hurtful actions can’t be forgiven

At age 73, shouldn’t another word be on that list?

As my mind raced last night that word popped into my head: Death. Wide awake and ruminating away about everything except…death (small d, this time, see the difference?).

The realization mortality was not part of my late night consternation festival kind of made me happy. Maybe, pleased with myself is a better description. Death is a constant companion in old age. When the news reports an actor’s death at 69, or the retired sports star’s life ends at 72, one can not help but think he, me, is lucky to be able to hear the news. Going to bed isn’t accompanied by the hope of waking up alive, but it is a subtext, especially if dying in your sleep is your preferred method of reaching the afterlife.

Sidebar: All morning a thought from last night has been escaping me. An important thought, I thought, but obviously not important enough for me to get out of bed and write it down. In the above paragraph it revealed itself, so I’ll share, plus many thanks to my slowing brain for not deleting the idea and making me work for it. The thought: When you die in your sleep, do you know you’re dying? Or is death just an eternal extension of sleep? Imagine being shot or stabbed, or suffering from a mortal illness. You spend at least a few moments knowing it is the end, don’t you? You may even spend minutes, hours, or days getting ready for the final breath…wishing things were different.

After reading the sidebar, it appears Death/death did enter nighttime, cranial ramblings, albeit, in a Dr. Steven Wright kind of way.

Of course, the whole point of this essay is how funny the mind works so this writing can be accepted as cogent.

Okay, I agree with myself except for the fact “cogent” refers to a well-stated “argument or case, one that is clear, logical and convincing.” So says the Oxford people. But I just read back through this jumble and can’t see anywhere a “case” or “argument” has been made.  For or against anything. Does that make the entire exercise pointless?

Let’s go with a “yes”, because an answer makes a case, makes an argument, and my inability to focus and write an essay sensible and informative suddenly becomes indisputable. I knock over your King.

With a re-read and hindsight, this gibberish fits the style of our modern news, anyway. I’m topical!

And relevant.

The real villain is SAD. “Seasonal Affective Disorder” is a real thing. A long, never-ending winter in Upstate New York is the cause. It’s been over 20 years since my life was “snowed under” by weather that saps the soul, steals the “joie de vive”, and makes an Independent Liberal long for Florida.

It won’t happen again.

Dreams

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Its really hard to navigate life without reference points, even with great tools. Finding a goal or a direction or a dream becomes impossible when the shoreline can’t be seen, or the horizon can’t be located, or the sun is blocked…

“I’m sick of following my dreams. I’m just going to ask them where they’re going and hook up with them later.” -Mitch Hedberg

“When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized the Lord doesn’t work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.”-Emo Philips

“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.”-Lily Tomlin

The fundamental challenge in life is how to live it. We NEVER as young people see a future of old age and decline. Never. And yet, no matter what we do with our life, how much money we make, or how much we waste it all, we all end up with the same simple lifeline: young, old, dead.

As we age it becomes really important to know where you stand, what your position is in life, what your accomplishments are, what you’ve done, what’s your legacy. And we try to manage all of those issues without any form of guidance. Any help. Parents? Its important to remember they are/were as clueless as we are, now. Bible? That would be a good source of guidance if it weren’t so loaded with violence, misogyny, homophobia, and patriarchy. Friends?

“I don’t fail, I succeed in finding what doesn’t work.”-Chris Titus

As the end of my time draws near, it is not a bad thing. My life could have been worse, could have been better, but it was/is overall a journey of few regrets and much enjoyment for the things and time given me.

But this logical train of thought is making me sad, these days. There is an abundance of evidence in the world that millions of people will never get the chance to learn the lessons life offers to all who live long, enough. It isn’t so much the casualty numbers from the many wars, or the horrific famine numbers from countries far way, or the death tolls of catastrophes to numerous to list. And it isn’t the fact death sometimes cuts life short. Recent stories of young people who died early reveals some of them learned something, found something, came to grips with something in the times leading up to their young deaths. What was it?

After 72 years the answer has not revealed itself to me, but there is an undeniable sadness around the loss of opportunity for others. Think of a favorite pet, like my Red, The Dog, from years back. What if he’d never been rescued by my family? In one of my books is a story about Superman. He has given up helping anyone because he can’t help them all. He’s done because he can’t handle the sadness of missing so many as he saves as many as he can.

I’ve been talking a lot with old friends and past acquaintances and the pain of getting old is felt even more when it is someone else’s, especially when dreams have been crushed, hopes dashed, lives not lived as intended. I want to shake them all and say “But you had a chance.”

It’s obvious why most religions offer some form of afterlife. It is a great comfort if you’ve lived a life without too much sin, without too much debauchery. Even if you did, Redemption is the greatest Christian invention, of all. But if we could step outside our own pain and find a reference point, a compass point, and then a path to our own contentedness with what we have done…

And, as noted before, someone I can’t remember said this: “There is a past, a present, and a future. My advice is see them all but live where your feet are.”