I’ve made enough trips around the sun by now to learn which things they say about growing older are true and which are malarkey. One of the things that is true is that at a certain point time has a tendency to get away from you.
Sometimes I feel like I’m looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Sarah and Joe should still be in high school. But they are not. She’s working at the UN and Joe’s a senior at Hendrix. Henry is beginning his career in the arts at Bravo Vail. You get the idea. As for me, I woke up 2-3 weeks ago to the realization that Uncle Sam and I got divorced 10 years ago. Seems like yesterday.
And according to the Coroner’s best guess, my brother Dave passed away a year ago yesterday. A year has passed since that bomb got dropped. That’s hard to believe.
I guess it’s good that time seems to be accelerating for a geezer like me. If the last year and a half, with the pandemic, the blizzard and Dave’s death wasn’t the worst time of my life I’m not sure that I want to see the one that tops 2020-2021. But it’s over thank God.
I still can’t quite wrap my head around it all. About where Dave’s passing fits in the great scheme of things. Assuming there is a great scheme in the first place. I know I shouldn’t think like this. But I can’t help myself.
I can name you, off the top of my head, 10 guys that had it coming if anyone did. 10 guys-make that 10 humans for diversity’s sake-that are at the minimum taking up space and wasting oxygen when they are not actively fucking with other people for the sheer sport of it.
Dave was kind and generous to a fault. He was an unassuming kind of guy who loved his craft, his spot in the Ozarks and the folks with whom he worked. If, as the old saying goes, a gentleman is also a useful man, Dave was the finest gentleman in that region. He could fix anything, cook anything and do theatre tech like nobody’s business. He was as good a friend brother and uncle as they come.
And he’s gone while those other 10 folks I mentioned above will live to be 150. You show me the fairness in that.
I am trained in the Bible and in theology and philosophy. I know that I am comparing apples and oranges. I know that such thoughts are illogical. I actually wondered-for some reason- around September of last year which one of us brothers would be first to go. I don’t usually engage in magical thinking-and I’m not sure I’m doing that now-but I wish I had not entertained those thoughts. I know. It’s crazy.
If you think I’m angry you are right. I’m mad at myself. I’m mad at the universe. I’m mad at God.
I am angry in spite of the fact that anger is useless and counterproductive. I’m still sufficiently on the rails to recognize that. And to recognize that Dave would not want that.
Dave was not the kind of guy to stand on ceremony. He didn’t want a funeral. He just wanted his ashes scattered at the cemetery in the Quitman community over by Heber Springs. Mother is buried there along with most of her people. Nephew Max scattered some of his ashes over the trees of the Ozarks that Dave loved so much. This is because Max was the only one brave enough to get on a zip line.
Bravery will not be required when we spread David across the burial ground in Quitman next month. It will require a commitment to sad duty and final things.
There will be no place for anger on that solemn day. I hope I’m man enough to put that aside.
I’m not sure that I am.
