PARTING THOUGHTS

                                                

On Saturday the 28^th of April we would have been married fifty years. It was a day she was so looking forward to because she always remembered a few relatives who told us we were too young and it would never last. That we were a couple of snot nosed kids who had no idea what we were getting into and didn’t understand what true love was all about. Those who said that are all gone now too, so there would have been no victory toast to relish. No crow to eat and no one to wink at and say “I told you so.” For me the satisfaction of still having her would have far out weighed anything else vindictive. We didn’t get married to win a contest, we married because kids, or not, we just enjoyed each other so much and that enjoyment never stopped.

It’s so different now that she is gone. I’m getting used to living alone but one thing that does bother me is when I see other older couples still enjoying each other’s company. I never had the “why me,” syndrome after she died but it does get me into a pity mood sometimes when that happens. I guess its human nature to be envious.

My wife was fun loving and gregarious and the last thing she would have wanted was for me to be moping around the rest of my life. If she could text me right now she would say “Suck it up Mike. But behave yourself.” There was a time when I would wake in the morning and think, “I would trade my tomorrow’s for those yesterdays in a New York minute but I know now that life isn’t about tomorrow’s or yesterdays but it is a trail of now’s and that’s what I need to be thinking about.

I have gone to a lot of weddings over the years and heard so many times the song Endless Love being sung. Not always like Diana Ross and Lionel Richie sang it-- but it’s the title of the song I wanted to talk about and not how it was sung. I have found out what endless love really means in the last few months. It’s a love that doesn’t go away even when physically there is no one here to love. Can it be replaced? Maybe, I’m not sure. Not sure because first of all you would have to want it to be replaced and then the answer to the question, can it be replaced, might be more obvious. But maybe replaced is a bad choice of words and it’s not another chapter in the same book but a whole new story. Time will tell I guess.

The other day I was sorting through the freezer when I came across a loaf of frozen pumpkin bread. There were so many people who gave me food after she passed and I froze a lot of stuff. But as I looked at the freezer bag, there was writing on it and it was hers. She had baked it a month before she died. I could only stare at it because here was something she had prepared for me to eat. I plan to have a piece of that bread on the 28^th. I will go to the grave with some flowers and that bread and we will celebrate together our anniversary. It won’t be the party I had planed, but there will be a party.

MY DAD THE ENTERTAINER

                                                

 I think my dad thought he was a modern day Confucius because he had a saying for everything. The biggest difference, between dad and the old Chinese scholar, was that most of the sayings from Confucius made sense. Dad would say things like, “I intend to live forever and so far, so good” or “a clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.” My mother would just roll her eyes, and shake her head, whenever he would get on one of his philosophical tirades. He, on the other hand, would smirk and shake his finger at you like listen up my son. He was like Donald Trump, without any money. Speaking of money, he told me once, “Always borrow money from a pessimist. They don’t expect it back, anyway.”

When I was a young man, and out cruising for chicks until three in the morning, he would ask me where I was last night. When I told him I was at a Bible Study class, he would tell me, “Good one,” and make a mark in the air with his finger. “I was born at night but it wasn’t last night,” he would say. “So start over or I’ll have to refresh your memory for you.” I swear the guy never slept because you could have come home, flown into the upstairs bedroom window on the wings of angels, and he would still have heard you.

I love good quotes, and frequently read books of them, or go on the Internet. It’s hard to come up with new ones nowadays because these wise old codgers, and doting women of days gone by, have been spouting them for five hundred years, and there “Is only so many ways to skin a cat,” and there I go again. I have often wondered if Ben Franklin’s wife didn’t tell him, once in a while, to “Go fly a kite,” with his constant stream of wisdom. Come to think of it, he did fly a kite and maybe, after he got hit by lightning a few times, he did shut up.

My mother only had one saying that I remember, and it was, “What was left unsaid, was best said.” When she would say that to our dad, he would scratch his head and give her his best Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy imitation—which would get all of us kids laughing and stifle poor mom in her tracks. “Yes, my dear,” he would say, smacking his lips and trying to sound like W. C Fields. “That would have been best left unsaid.” I remember my brother once, when he was about twelve, raising his hand at the supper table and asking to go to the bathroom. Dad said, “You may—but not there—go in the biffy with that.”

Yes, dad was an entertainer first and foremost, but you know what—we all loved him for it, and so did mom. There was never a dull moment in our home. I remember talking to you once before about the difference between a house and a home. Our house was a shack by the railroad tracks, but our home was a vaudeville theater, filled with laughter and love. Of the eight siblings in our family, there has been one divorce in fifty years. Dad and Mom should be so proud. So, for now, I think I’m done because, “A conclusion in my life is the place where I got tired of thinking,” and I am.

DRUGS

                                                            

 For the past few weeks, I have listened to the many accolades for Whitney Houston, who passed away so suddenly. The words were very deserving, as Whitney was a wonderful singer, and we are in an era where music plays a huge role in how we feel about life.  Whitney’s death has been ruled to be caused by drowning but drugs played a big part in her demise. She had a long and sad history of use. If this is true, she joins a long list of celebrities who met a similar fate. Always, after sad events like this, we ask why. Why, when someone is at the top of her/his game, would they get caught up in this? They are not alone—read on.

After forty years of the war on drugs, the cost of this to our country is over a trillion dollars, and if anything, it is increasing. The cost in lives is incalculable because of the far-reaching pain and suffering it has caused. There have been over forty thousand Mexican citizens alone—killed in the last few years—caught up in drug wars while supplying this country with its insatiable appetite for drugs. Maybe if these people, and the others who died, were held in the same light as Hollywood celebrities, we would pay more attention. But they’re not because, in our eyes, they are insignificant and the demand for drugs is so great.

Imagine yourself, standing at the top of a high cliff with a lake below. On one side of you is a man telling you, if you jump, you’ll very likely be hurt badly or killed. On the other side of you, is a man telling you this could be the biggest thrill of your life. You choose to jump, just this one time; but now you’re addicted, so you jump time and time again, from higher and higher up the cliff, until one day your luck runs out. That’s what drugs will do to you. At first, they will be taken “just for fun,” but gradually, the fun becomes tame compared to that ultimate high you are now searching for. Stronger doses, stronger drugs, and an insatiable appetite for that ultimate high will now control you. Tomorrow doesn’t concern you any more, it’s today and now that’s important. You used to be popular—a good student and an athlete—but that’s no longer fun. You had a job, but they let you go. Your friends drift away from you, and your parents won’t leave you alone, so you hide in your bedroom and withdraw from society. You hang around with the low life’s that got you here. If you’re a boy, at some time the money will run out, and you will steal or rob to get it, even if it’s from those you love. Right now, you love the drug more. If you’re a girl, you will most likely turn to prostitution, and do things that will morally sicken you, to get the money, risking unwanted pregnancy and disease. Along with this goes the loss of your self-esteem and self-worth, and most of the people who loved and believed in you. Now, you’re left alone with your drugs.

I’m not a former user, but as a fireman, I saw the results of people using drugs over and over again. I helped bag up their overdosed bodies, and I pried them out of car wrecks. I fished them out of the river when they became so desperate they ended it all. I cried with their parents, who sobbed over their lifeless bodies, and could only say over and over again…“Why?” If you are using drugs, stop before it’s too late and you become just another statistic. Look at your friends and family and think of what you are doing to them. God gives you second chances—and so will they.

HONEY

                                                            

 She used to take so much pride in her vegetable garden. I wasn’t allowed in it except to till the earth in the spring and pick the fruits of her labor in the fall. She would sit for hours on end, on her little mat, with her garden tools, stripping away each and every weed and imposter that didn’t belong there. Nothing was allowed there but what was intended to be there—the vegetables and the rich black earth they grew in. She would often work her way, from the far side, to the garden gate, so even her tracks wouldn’t show. Like everything she did, pride always took over and she made it so perfect.

After the angels came that July day and took her away, the garden quickly turned to weeds. I was overwhelmed with her passing and knew I couldn’t grow, or tend, a garden that would be up to her standards, so I didn’t even try. It would have been almost sacrilegious to her memory. So, on a warm summer day, I took the fence down, tilled it up, and planted grass seed and two apple trees. Now I wait patiently for spring, and for apple blossoms to bloom over that special spot.

Years ago, Bobby Goldsboro sang a song called, “Honey.” Some parts of it are so reminiscent of her, and the words and melody filter through my mind whenever I walk past that tiny plot of earth.

“One day when I was not at home while she was there and all alone, the angels came. Now all I have is memories of Honey and I wake up nights and call her name.  Now my life’s an empty stage where Honey lived and Honey played and love grew up.  And a small cloud passes overhead and cries down on the flowerbed. And honey I miss you and I’m being good and I long to be with you if only I could.”

Who knew that a song that I listened to, so many times over the last fifty years, would someday fit my mood so closely and seem so relevant. As if it had been written, with my situation in mind, as a melodious expression of how I feel today. Music has always been special in this way. To say something is one thing, but to put it to music makes it so much better. How many times have you searched for the words to say what you want to say and then—there they are—already written and put to music.

People tell me that someday I will turn a corner and the rest of my life will start again. I believe I am on the right path, but it’s not a journey I want to hurry. I can wait to get to that corner. For, you see, my life really started with her. It didn’t amount to much until she came along and completed me. Somehow, no matter what life brings from here on in, I am sure it will end with her, too. It would only be fitting. In the meantime, I’ll buy my vegetables; and the fruit from those apple trees will be awesome.

BRING IT ON

 Today there is a spring in my step again. The spring I am talking about may be only an analogy, as it pertains to this story, but the spring taking center stage here in the Northwood’s is not. I am talking about the season, when that “warming star” we all revolve around seems to overcome the cold of winter, and melts, not only the snow and the ice, but it warms the cockles of our hearts and the smiles on our faces as well. True, here in God’s country we had a weenie winter, as far as winters go, but it’s not only the cold we don’t need or want anymore. It’s also the darkness that envelops us for a good share of our waking hours in winter.

For me, it’s more of a new beginning happening, than just the rebirth of our earth. It’s my first time going into summer without her, and that tempers the joy that used to be there, no doubt. It’s my first summer with a new pup. Although a lot of work right now—I need this relationship in my life. It’s lonely living alone and responsibility breeds self-satisfaction even if it’s only caring for a dog. It’s been a reunion of old friends and old faces, back from their winter hiatus, at the coffee shop. It’s not a sudden epiphany on springtime I’m feeling here as I write. I’ve been here many times before and they have all been unique.

We heard the words “Arab Spring” last year in the Middle East, and it had nothing to do with the weather, but it did have a lot to do with a new beginning. How that will work out is yet to be seen. They, too, want to come out of their darkness and have a new beginning. Mother Nature seems to be more in charge of her version of springtime than we do. But then, mankind has never been a formidable foe for nature, except to unbalance it. Left alone, nature will repair that damage, but that would mean us disappearing. If we keep going the way we are—that just might come to pass.

But for now, let’s focus on the impending spring season, and what it has always meant to us. It means crocuses and daffodils, poking their heads out of the earth once more; green grass and bubbling brooks and ice-free lakes and ponds. It means there will be babies, of every species, filling in the holes in their ranks and ensuring the continuation of their kind. It means the smell of freshly plowed dirt as the farmers try, once again, to feed a hungry world; fish, thrashing in the shallows, spawning more fish; colorful birds, filling the air with song and building new homes to raise their young in; trees budding and sap running.

But for me today, it’s almost a melancholy mood while I cash in one more spring coupon out of life’s book. Today is a time to sit on the porch, let the sun soak in and reminisce of the times when we had so many dreams left unfulfilled, and our own babies to raise. Now, I can only think of the words from the good book, for they seem so relevant right now, “For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” It puts it all into perspective, doesn’t it?