Dec 30 2010
Life Goes On
It is customary, I suppose, to reflect upon the past while anticipating the future this time of year. After all, one calendar year is ending and another is about to begin. But this time around, circumstances have made that process a little more poignant for me.
Scout Thibault, my next-door neighbor and friend, died three days ago. 87 years is a full life, certainly, but that doesn’t make his passing away any easier to accept. It happened so fast. He and I were in the driveway silently shoveling snow together just last week, as we have every winter for the past ten years. Now, all of a sudden, I do the task alone.
While cleaning the clutter out of my office the other day, I sorted through several year’s worth of letters. Some were literary; others were personal. As I have grown older, the boundary between the two has blurred. Truth is, there are no such boundaries. Not really. We all march through life together, and it matters little whether our interactions with each other are professional or otherwise. We carry the marks left on us by others. And vice versa.
Living in such close proximity – with a shared driveway no less – I made an effort to be as civil as possible to my neighbor Scout. That civility slowly transformed into friendship despite the many differences between us. Suddenly I found myself shedding a tear for someone I had once considered an annoyance. These things happen. For better or worse, we all leave our marks on each other.
Each year Judy and I gather together all our grandchildren for a three-day summer camp – no parents allowed. For Christmas we gave both families a small photo album of the last get-together. While Matt’s family was going through it, our youngest grandchild Tommy exclaimed: “Me not there!” That’s because he was too young last summer. But that will change this year. Tommy’s day in the sun is approaching fast.
Hard to say which impresses me more: the many people I’ve known and things I’ve done in the past, or the prospects that still lie ahead. As I grow older, it becomes increasingly more difficult to separate accomplishments from plans, the personal from the merely civil, fond memories from sad ones, the future from the past. Yet one thing remains crystal clear: the planet spins about its axis and new generations come along no matter what happens, no matter who passes away. This is a prospect I find both deeply disturbing and wonderfully consoling. Life goes on.
One response so far
One Response to “Life Goes On”
Nice. Touching.
I lift a toast of hot chocolate to you. Enjoy the shoveling. I never get to do it here in Florida. Which I’m mostly glad about. Especially for my lower back. But not totally glad about.