TASK #40: THE BIG SLEEP
“The streets were dark with something more than night…” Raymond Chandler
Soooo…
I’m getting to that age… I don’t think I’m old–I still work, I have a kid in school, I don’t nap like my dad does, and I I still wake up with morning wood–thankfully–but I’m getting old nonetheless. The people I see on TV, like the contestants on American Idol and The Voice and the Bachelor are WAY younger than me, and now when I reference Sixteen Candles, no one knows what I’m talking about.
But I don’t feel old.
Every summer I return to my hometown in Ohio, up by Lake Erie. I go back to play golf at this yearly fundraiser for this guy we knew–the big brother of on of my buddies–who died in front of his house while mowing the grass. I don’t really care about the golf, or the steak fry after the golf, but I do enjoy going to our local bar, The Nest, and drinking with my old friends.
Now when I leave home in the morning I kiss my wife and make sure I say goodbye to the kids… I try to interact with them on some level because if you think you are going to live forever, you’re not, and neither are they.
|
This summer played out that same as every year: bad golf, bad steak, then we made our way to The Nest. The Nest is one of those places that only exist in small towns like mine–it has a huge bar, relatively cheap beer, neon signs, a jukebox that is almost elusively stocked with Frank Sinatra records, a couple of illegal slot machines, a shitty bathroom; it’s always dark, and men sit in clusters drinking and talking.
I sat at the bar with two of my high school friends, Dan and Ray. Both are Italian, both have known each other since they were kids, and though they live in separate states–Ray in Ohio and Dan in New Jersey, they are as close as two guys can be. I like to hang with them because they are story tellers. Ray in particular. He can pontificate on any subject known to man, and Dan can nearly match him. As for myself, I am a listener. I sit between them and throw out random topics, like an audience member at an improv show.
That night we sat at The Nest bar ’til it closed. Dan and Ray talked and talked and talked. They re-hashed and embellished their sex tales, moaned about the Indians and the Browns, talked about mortgages and cars and how to make meatballs, and whatever…I just sat and listened.
The next day I went back to my town, Dan went back to New Jersey, and Ray went back to Columbus, where he lives.
About ten days later, in the mid-morning, I get a text from another of our buddies. His name is Tony. It says, RAY DIED. What the hell? I start making inquiries, and Tony was right–Ray was dead. He got up in the morning to go to the gym and he fell over in the living room and died of a heart attack. His wife found him there.
This was on a Friday and they were going to bury him on Tuesday. We’re all Catholics, and Catholics don’t dawdle when it comes to burying people.
I opted not to go back for the funeral. I sent flowers, and on Tuesday evening I started texting all my friends to find out how the viewing and the funeral played out. Evidently there was a big crowd, and after they lay Ray to rest, they all went to The Nest and drank.
That evening I texted Dan. I said, “How are you my friend?”. He answered, “My wing man is gone. I miss him”. I texted back and said, “I’m sorry. He’s up in heaven talking some poor fool’s head off.” He send back a laughing/crying emoji and I figured, that’s that.
Only it wasn’t. At five am the next morning I hear a PING. I have a text. I open it up. It’s from Dan. It says, “I thought you would want to see this”. It was a picture of Ray in his coffin. Dan must have taken it with his iPhone.
What the..! It was five am and I was barely awake and there was Ray resting in his coffin. I wrote back, “Thx”. What else could I say?
Now I look at that picture every now and then. It’s effing morbid, but it is a vivid reminder that life is very, very fleeting. And now when I leave home in the morning I kiss my wife and make sure I say goodbye to the kids, because I may not come home one night, or God forbid one of them doesn’t make it home, and when I get in at night I no longer hole up and watch the evening news and ignore them–I try to interact with them on some level because if you think you are going to live forever, you’re not, and neither are they.
TASK
Treat every interaction you have with a loved one as if it the last one that you’re ever going to have.
Photos by Joe Doe, and whoislimos on Unsplash