For several days now I have had a recurring feeling of anxiety. No reality has given me any cause to do so, it's simply come on me at unexpected moments. A feeling that something is wrong.
Something is indeed wrong and it may be endtimes for a certain relationship I had counted out long ago in any case. But the knowledge that the finality of eternity will end forever any possibility of reconciliation gives me pause.
I suppose that's because I'm human....dammit.
We're all of us just here temporarily, and we do what we do, and though in my heart of hearts I know that in the sense of the universe it means very little, I can't help but wish things had been different.
Recently I had occasion to reflect on my adoptive maternal grandparents, and their lives, or what little I know of their lives.
They both were born around the turn of the century, to country folk in Missouri, he the southern part, she the north. Somehow they met and married and had their first child in Pierce City, Mo in 1922.
Legend had it that Grandpa's family, not only large in number was also large in commanding respect. One was lost in the "Great War," but most were still with us when I came to know them. Scattered, but alive and some with dubious professional connections.
Curly was a union head with a local construction union, Grandpa was retired but had been a night watchman most of his working life, William was in and out of prison his entire adult life (it was as though he couldn't help himself) Joe was retired and lived in Wichita, Bussy (yes Bussy) drove a route sales truck for a beer distributor, and Murph, well, Murph was reputed to be a member of the Chicago mafia. He arrived at my grandparents home once, for a funeral I'm sure, in two full size Oldsmobile 98's filled with extra large men all wearing suits with a bulge in the front and saying very little. They remained outside for his entire visit. I thought it very exciting. The danger junkie, even then.
But the point of this little exercise I think, is that although these people passed through my life, and I knew them, or of them I should say, they're all dead now. Their wives are dead, and most of their children are dead. And very little of what they did, and who they were is remembered.
Whatever it is that we think we're leaving behind doesn't really matter. Because when no one is here to remember us, and celebrate our legacy, whatever that may be, we're just a name.
I thought recently that I might purchase a plaque for a park bench and put my stepmothers name on it as a remembrance. But then I thought, "Hell, the outdoors is the last place you'd ever find her." So if I were to do such a thing I'd put it in a hospital, where she would have wanted it to be. She gave her entire working life to the career of nursing and she'd like that I think.
Another friend should have a plaque in a theater. He gave his life to it, but though his talents were considerable, he squandered them and with the reputation he left I'd have a hard time finding a theater that would allow his name on anything. If I choose to do it, I'll find a way though.
"Something lives as long as the last person who remembers it." says an old navajo proverb.
Maybe that's best.
And so it goes:
