"Everything that we love will, at some point, be taken away from us. If I think about everyone I love eventually being taken away from me by death, or simply by getting lost from each other in the world, it makes me value them much more now. And I'm much less likely to be indifferent. For me, indifference is the end of life."
Probably the surest way to make sure no one reads this blather is to go dark for a couple weeks at a time.
Plenty has happened in the interim, in my defense. My Uncle Pat died unexpectedly last Saturday, nine days ago. I say "unexpectedly", but he'd been sick a long time. It just wasn't the hospice morphine drip in the ICU, giving a measure of certainty to the premise that death lurks a few hours away. That's what happened with Mom.
Pat and Mom were true "Irish Twins", born ten months apart in 1944.
He outlasted her by almost exactly ten weeks.
Pat had, by most objective measures, the most successful life of any of our clan. A great career as a spine surgeon in Omaha. A wife who thought he hung the moon for fifty-three years. Four wonderful kids, all successful in their own right, and eight grandchildren. Maybe it was the Italian in-laws, but they were also the closest family you'd ever meet, right to the end.
I worked a half-day on Thursday, then Peg and I flew to Omaha in the Columbia, battling 30+ knot headwinds the whole way, but blessed with clear skies and zero drama from air traffic control or the aircraft itself. The nice young man driving the gas truck at Millard Field swooned over the Columbia, which is a sure way to get on my good side. The headwinds had blown us behind schedule, and we raced in the rental car to the hotel for a quick change and then on to Christ the King Catholic Church for the wake.
The sanctuary, where I gather the family has attended since my cousins were kids, is a boxy, cavernous space with stained glass that was probably quite trendy in the 1960s when the place was built.
This wake wasn't the boozy, slightly irreverent affair you might picture. There was Pat in the box up front (how I hate open caskets!), and the priest gloomily working his way through the rosary as the hundred or so folks in the pews mumbled along. All somber stuff.
Afterwards we hugged a few necks, were surprised to see my cousins Scott and Deb there from the west coast, and led a posse of Bowmans and Leases down to the steakhouse in the strip mall next to the church for supper and cocktails. The kids and grandkids went home to be with Aunt Mimi. My Uncle Guy, whom I've not seen in years, sat across from me, and we had a great conversation about his life as a retired college president. He's fixing to turn 80 in a few months. How did that happen? Next to him my Aunt Peggy matched me double Jameson for double Jameson, obviously hurting at the loss of two siblings in such a short time. Uncle John further down the long table seemed lost in his grief, and left early. Watching them left me wondering if I have some missing emotional circuitry, sitting at the end of the table glibly telling stories. I'd just lost my mom, for Pete's sake. And now Pat. I haven't shed a tear since the morning Mom died. Not sure what to make of that.
The next morning Peg and I found some decent coffee, and commented in the little coffee shop next to the University of Nebraska teaching hospital about how people in Omaha seemed mostly appropriately dressed, not obese, and polite to a fault. It's like a time capsule of everything that was good about this country four or five decades ago.
Then it was time for the funeral. We were part of a cluster of Bowmans walking into the church and looking lost before someone shepherded us into the little alcove by the front door where the family had gathered around the coffin, lid open again. More mumbling and genuflecting. Then we were more or less directed to walk past the coffin. I tried not to look, and wish I hadn't.
Inside the sanctuary, I noticed my sister and Bobby sitting off among the rather large crowd. She was in jeans, and he in a tan suit. I was baffled by all that, and by the fact that they were sitting off by themselves. Eventually they slid over to the family section to sit with us. Our chaotic branch of the family was keeping it real.
The service was lovely, high church Roman Catholic. My cousin Beth gave a beautiful eulogy, illuminating her dad's life in a way only a doting daughter can. All of the grandkids had speaking parts, and all were poised and well-spoken. And all knew and loved each other, that was obvious. They weren't just siblings or cousins; they were friends. It's the closest and nicest family I think I've ever known, a credit to Pat and Mimi as parents.
After the graveside we returned to the parish hall for a catered lunch, and more neck hugging. The family planned to gather at Mimi's later that afternoon, but some were already trickling off to other commitments, and I kept thinking of the mess here at the farm that requires our attention. Plus, unlike P I get exhausted at social events, any social events, and start looking for an exit after a couple hours of trying to appear presentable.
We should've stayed. I regret all that.
The flight home was God's way of making up for those headwinds on the way up to Nebraska. We made it nonstop from Omaha to Perry in a shade over three-and-a-half hours, riding tailwinds of over seventy knots most of the way home and landing in the dark in some pretty intense crosswinds.
I've been sort of lost every since we arrived back here at the farm, and yesterday sank into a deep funk exacerbated by trouble at work. There's always trouble at work. I've been a partner in a law firm, fretting over numbers and personalities and other peoples' legal problems for over twenty-three of my twenty-six years as a lawyer. In the meantime I have one son I never hear from, ever, one who'll respond with a single sentence text whenever I check in on him, and one who's always been close but now lives halfway across the planet with no prospect of coming home soon. I've picked up a great son when I married Peg, which is a good thing because I imagine he'll be the only one to show up when the time comes to make our "arrangements".
In that light, was this a successful life? Not really, no matter what awards and stuff we've accumulated. But there's not much to be done about all that water under the bridge now. The ability to live a good life runs in only one direction.
And, like every other day for the last quarter century, that path ahead is filled with more work. It's like the old Pink Floyd song I didn't really understand until I reached this late season.
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun But it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again The sun is the same in a relative way But you're older Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter Never seem to find the time Plans that either come to naught Or half a page of scribbled lines
So with that, let's get to work and turn this beautiful autumn day into a pile of twenties.
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