For some strange reason, dates have played a larger role in my life than I could ever have imagined. It all started forty years ago (plus or minus a day or so.) July 19th, the day I was born, not only symbolized the year of my birth, but the day before the great line was spoken by Neil Armstrong, “that’s one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind.” I don’t wear a watch, or keep track of time, a calendar in the house is scarce, but yet dates, well; they seem to serve as constant reminders of all major comings and goings, whether I am paying attention or not.
We spend a great deal of our lives concerned with dates, appointments, must do’s and other rites of passage. They range from birth, to (for some) baptism, first communion, marriage, turning 21 and then again turning 40, retiring and then, yes, death. The final rite of passage, maybe? (Now this is not to say that turning 40 is followed by death, but that the order of the rites of passage does lead us closer to the grave with each one.) All rites of passage seem to be marked down on some cosmic calendar that we don’t actually ever see….or at least not on this plane of existence.
As I get older, (sigh) I remember often something I wrote. I could look it up but I choose to write this essay as I would write a letter to my oldest friend and paraphrase. (I write this as a whole, the way a friend told me once, to write everything.) I once wrote about my grandfather’s farm and how it existed as an “endless round”, presenting just enough work to keep Popie busy. I think of that phrase I wrote so many years ago, and wonder about it. It is this “endless round” that peaks my interest today.
The more I think about it, the more it seems to be one of my certain truths, and as unpleasant as it may be, it does seem that as the round goes round, that “things”, all things, die. Relationships die. Pets die. Love dies. Marriages die. Careers die.
People die.
No matter how hard we wish, and pray and believe otherwise, this is one truth refuses to give in to our humanly, mortal demands. It exists, with or without our permission, on its own playing field.
Sometimes, although our calendars may look blank, there is a check somewhere on the cosmic calendar that says on this date this “thing” must die. As I wonder this I can’t help but also wonder that when relationships die, it seems when healing has begun, soul mates present themselves. And when careers end, as much as we may fight and protest, the opportunity to reinvent ourselves is always, ALWAYS, right in front of us. With all death, there is an opportunity for life….the “endless round.”
While it is true that the death part of the round often represents sadness due to loss and the fear of the unknown, the life part can also be equally scary. Life is bumpy, and dangerous, and more often than not presents us with sharp edges, unknown pitfalls and always, the “divine banana peel” that drops in just to make sure we’re paying attention. If life exists with coming and goings, and in some way pulses with a constant force, than it only can mean that the circle of life is just that, a circle and what was, will be, and must be, again.
I have been pondering this idea for some time and felt it only right to write it now, on the post eve of my birthday. For me, this day charged in with all the emotion of a raging fire and fizzled quietly and calmly out with beauty and inner peace. It was a raging bonfire that was not extinguished by a nearby garden hose, but one that was allowed to burn, glowing, and fading, until the last ember burst quickly into the brightest of orange life and then quietly, peacefully, went dark.
For me, July 19th was to be a day filled with friends, family and remembrances of great times gone by. A day of hello’s. A day that existed there for me solely, my day. For others, it would be a day that existed only for them. For him. To some, July 19th would be a day also filled with family, friends, and remembrances. For them, it would exist as a day of goodbyes. Forever marked in history books as a final goodbye. A chapter closed. The final rite of passage completed. Those that didn’t know better would say, The End.
This day would forever represent the universal day of mourning for the loss of a great teacher, writer, speaker, and kind, clever, soul. The cosmic calendar was as always, on that day, busy again.
As my rite of passage charged in and left in its wake a group of older, perhaps wiser people all remembering the good times, the happy times, the jokes and the humor of life, for others it meant something else. For me it was July 19th, my 40th birthday, my coming into “adulthood”, but for the rest of the world, it was July 19th, the day that Frank McCourt, passed quietly and peacefully into a plane that exists only briefly for those ready to move on to the unknown, the uncharted, and the next stop on the great Ferris wheel.
‘I didn’t call myself anything. I was more than a teacher. And less. In the high school classroom you are a drill sergeant, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-uncle-aunt, a bookkeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw.’
~Frank McCourt
And so, like many others, I say goodbye to Frank McCourt, at least for now, for today. A person who I never met (although I did see once but was too nervous to approach). A person who’s humor made it possible to deal with so many of life’s curveballs and who’s literary magic made it possible for everyone to read, relate to, and laugh about struggles that would otherwise be unmentionable.
And so, I share willingly and openly (and most proudly) this July 19th with a man who made the hard road of life a little more tolerable for many, and did it in a way that offered a soft cushion for the hard reality, a good laugh for the immorality, and a way to say goodbye with a smile, a story and an inner calmness that can only come from knowing that your story has changed lives and will continue to do so.
Comings and goings.
Peace, always, Chris
writer, Grandma by default, small wave ambassador, teacher, student, wanderer, friend, lover of all chapters, and yes, last straw, more or less….
** Editor’s Note*** If typos, or grammatical errors exist in this I ask that you embrace them as you would bumps in the road of life, nothing is smooth, completely….
www.fourleafclover.us
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