Today I heard some heartbreaking news, two good friends from the neighborhood lost their son (age 30) in a car wreck over the weekend. I don't use the word "heartbreaking" lightly - my father died when I was 17 and I know how it feels when your heart breaks. The world turns on its head and everything hurts, nothing makes sense and all at once life appears too short, too painful, too messed up and just too meaningless. That's shock, grief and a lifetime of memories messing with you. It's amazing how your brain can affect your body so much - if anyone ever tells you there is no such thing as mind-over-matter they surely have never felt the brutal hammer of grief smashing into their existence.
The reason I mention this is because inevitably such events remind one (or they should do) of our own mortality. It got me thinking that if my only lasting legacy were to end up being this blog I wouldn't want my family and friends thinking that I was this miserable old sod who just whined and moaned on and on (as I often do here) about how messed up life is, and that I really didn't enjoy life that much at all. Hence I'm blogging here tonight, when I should be doing some work, to set the record straight:
My life is good!
So if I die tomorrow for whatever reason I want all those who knew me to remember that. I loved life. I have a great gal by my side who happens to think I'm a swell kind of guy, I have a roof over my head that's at least 50% mine (well it doesn't rain that often here anyway), I got a good education (for free!), had both a loving mother and father for the crucial years of my life, had two great brothers who were fine role models for me, got at least one square meal in me every day until I left home for college (where I lived off toast and coffee), and for the time being I'm enjoying good health - I don't even visit the dentist very often (well I am Britsh aren't I!).
I haven't exactly been a world traveler but I've moved 5,000 miles from home, been to a vaudeville convention in Hawaii, laid on my back at midnight in the Great Plaza at Tikal and looked up at the stars and comet Hale-Bopp, flown like a bird 3000 feet over the Pacific ocean, and swam with the fishes and juggled at 14,000 ft in Hawaii. I've enjoyed a hearty meal far from the madding crowd cooked on rocks around a camp fire and feasted on a sumptuous meal served on fine china in the belly of a bustling city that was over $250 a head. I've slept on a straw mattress above a barn for $1 a night and on fine Egyptian cotton sheets in Manhattan at over $500 a night. I've been filthy dirty for days and jumped naked into an ice cold mountain lake, and waltzed off a ship, across pearly white sand, and into a perfect warm blue ocean.
But it was never about how much those experiences cost, and all about who I was with, who much I enjoyed them and valued them later.
I've come close to drowning twice, quite probably almost drank myself to death once as a teenager, nearly fell out of a minivan on a freeway, and yet still, in idle moments, often forget how tenuous our connection to life is, and what brief a flash of light we bring to the world before all becomes dark again. Past thirty-five already I'm reminded my noon day fun is definitely behind me, but I'm hoping twighlight is still a long and lazy afternoon away - if I'm lucky that is.
Do I feel lucky? Of course, given what I've just told you I should feel downright blessed. So let it be put on the record, I love and have loved my life, I love Joanna, I love my mother, my brothers and all my family and my wonderful friends. Its been and I always plan it to be, great.
So just remember, if I left you all tomorrow under whatever circumstances I couldn't think of a more appropriate thing for you to do than hold a good old fashioned Irish wake. Yes party and have a good time in my name - then before the fun is over and people start to drift away, pause a moment to raise a glass , fine whisky or just plain water, you choose - drinks are on me! You wont find my eye to meet yours, or my glass to clink for a toast, but just imagine I'm there and think of the good times we've had together and remind yourself - life is good. My salutation to you, unsaid, unheard will be:
So long and thanks for all the fish!
Its a strange saying from that most gifted and off-beat writer, Douglas Adams. A reminder perhaps, that just because something doesn't really make any sense, there's no reason why you shouldn't just hunker down and enjoy it anyway. So go home, rest easy and enjoy your life while you have it!
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