I often think there is nothing I could say on a date that would be more disheartening than the truth that "Pretty much all the people I have had romances with in the past are dead." But it is true.
I know lots of dead people.
When I do a "memorial tattoo" that we call "dedications" I like to encourage the recipient, reminding them that as long as someone remembers a person they are not completely gone.
Watching people care for those whose memories have abandoned them convinces me that is Hell on Earth indeed.
In high school my Latin teacher told me her husband was left at home all day in a special room she'd had constructed for him where he was safe. She told me "I love him not for who he is now, but for who he was. So I care for what is left of him."
Growing up in Pasadena I always had the premonition I would live up to become, in the words of the Jan and Dean classic song, a "little old lady from Pasadena."
And so I have.
Outliving the wild boys who drank and used drugs and wore out their bodies, making those last hospice visits as they faded away.
"It is not given to know the number of our days."
Certainly being in the crotchety years puts the perspective on it all. As we dither over politics we run our individual race in the present moment, the only one we can ever know.
Thank you. Your musings were humble, refreshing, kind and positive - so different from the usual commentary found on this website. Hopefully you will continue- as a newly 73 year old it struck a chord.
I often think there is nothing I could say on a date that would be more disheartening than the truth that "Pretty much all the people I have had romances with in the past are dead." But it is true.
I know lots of dead people.
When I do a "memorial tattoo" that we call "dedications" I like to encourage the recipient, reminding them that as long as someone remembers a person they are not completely gone.
Watching people care for those whose memories have abandoned them convinces me that is Hell on Earth indeed.
In high school my Latin teacher told me her husband was left at home all day in a special room she'd had constructed for him where he was safe. She told me "I love him not for who he is now, but for who he was. So I care for what is left of him."
Growing up in Pasadena I always had the premonition I would live up to become, in the words of the Jan and Dean classic song, a "little old lady from Pasadena."
And so I have.
Outliving the wild boys who drank and used drugs and wore out their bodies, making those last hospice visits as they faded away.
"It is not given to know the number of our days."
Certainly being in the crotchety years puts the perspective on it all. As we dither over politics we run our individual race in the present moment, the only one we can ever know.
http://cyberfish.substack.com
Thank you. Your musings were humble, refreshing, kind and positive - so different from the usual commentary found on this website. Hopefully you will continue- as a newly 73 year old it struck a chord.