It will be a day and it will be just like any other day - some
winners, some losers, some just barely staying above water, some
slipping under...Those who are not busy being born will be busy dying,
playing out the dramas we call life with the all the triumphs, tragedies
and ho-hum days. The sun will 'rise' and 'set' and there will be
weather and a lot of boring and mundane things will happen.
Probably 99.99999999999 percent of these events go unnoticed by the
world at large, even with the explosion of social media. With seven
billion people it's easy to go unnoticed sometimes. But that's not to
say things that happen are not important events - it just depends on
one's perspective. The bad things seem to carry more weight, have more
lasting impact than the daily surviving, the celebrations of surviving
to different dates and anniversaries on the calendar.
We
are all at different stages in the journey, but no one really knows the
final date - for them or anyone else. Sometimes medical professionals
make their best educated guesses, but really that's all it is. When that
happens maybe we're luck enough to make contact with someone and relive
some old memories and say "goodbye and thanks for making my life
special." And you get to be with some other friends doing the same and
hang on each other and share some more stories, laugh and cry and wish
it wasn't happening knowing full well we all have to go one day and that
the best we can hope for is quietly, surrounded by loved ones.
And then it's over.
The friends and family gather one last time and then we scatter like
dandelion fluff at the end of the summer. Scattered to the wind and back
to our 'regular lives.' Back to laundry and dishes waiting to be done,
children and pets to be fed, bathed and raised up right and more living
and dying. Some of us will meet again in the odd ritual of waiting like
vultures over another ill friend. Some we will bump into hither and
yon, some will only be brought bacxk to mind when someone says "Oh you
remember Jimmy John Jumpback? I ran into him someplace..." "Oh man, I
haven't thought about him in years!" Some will just be a name on a cell
in the brain that is never recalled after your high school reunion.
Whether I see them again or not, they will go on living and dying but
their life events will have as little impact on me as mine have on them.
Depending on one's perspective.
It's been three
weeks, Michael and it still seems surreal. Like a weird dream of sorts.
But I know it's all true. That night on the back porch with your family,
playing your music, there was a physical hole in the room where you
should have been standing and holding court. You know the music always
gives me a buzz, but it was different this time. You weren't needling me
about Mick Taylor being the guy that made the Stones into THE STONES!
You weren't praising Billy Gibbons tone and telling me yet again about
seeing ZZ Top and the Stones in '81 and ZZ Top blowing the Stones off
the stage, "clearly the best band that day, the band that the audience
DEMANDED and encore from." The electricity and enthusiasm we shared we
so subdued. I picked things you would have loved - Ya-Ya's, ZZ Top, Hendrix At Winterland and the Bon Scott classic If You Want Blood, You've Got it. Do yo know how proud I was when Michelle's fiancee said he should take that one [AC/DC] home? [Of course you do!]
It was too soon, Michael. I never got to Indiana, PA to visit, see the
town of so many tales that you and Bill and Rich told me - glorious
spots of misspent youth. I was far too young to remember living there.
We never gopt to go to your cousin's place in the Strip District and
have Italian deli and cold IC Light. Didn't get to step into the vinyl
vault again and relive those albums you and Bill loved and passed on to
me to love. No last chance to talk about flinging the Ramones album, the
broken School's Out, feeding eggs to Jack the Bird, the hot tub
disaster, seeing Buddy Whittington... it was too soon, Michael. It was
just too soon!
I hate you for this
"Ironing" / dewrinkling a shirt
In a hotel room
In a town I hardly know anyone
Terrible travels - mine and others
All about paying respects
Asshole. Jag off!
We love you.
You will be missed.
