It should be noted up front that this column isn't going to be maudlin. Also, I'm healthy; I'm merely reflecting on the inevitable because today is the tenth anniversary of my dad's death. I now live on the same property as he did (but not in the same house), and I spent the morning writing outside in the courtyard, staring at the last place he ever lived.
The writing was productive, the weather was wonderful, and I opted to remember good things. After a while, I did start wandering down a mental path and thinking about death in general. The only thing more unavoidable than thoughts about death is death itself.
I have been blessed with extraordinary health and a family that tends to hang around for a while. I was 34 when my first grandparent died and 51 when the last one passed away. My dad was 77 when he died, which was pretty young in my family. It was also avoidable, but that's a long story I'd rather just shove into the shadows, even today.
The health and family longevity combo that I've enjoyed means that I haven't frittered away too many hours in my life worrying about death. There were nights when I'd hit the perfect combination of Vicodin and red wine and be convinced that I was immortal. Yeah, yeah, you're not supposed to mix the two, but I have an entertainer/writer heart and liver. Once you make it through one of those nights, the immortality vibe is bolstered.
Then I hit my sixties, and that's when society makes you think about death more often. Whatever professional and social circles you've developed will suddenly start experiencing the deaths of people close to your age. I went to a Catholic high school, and we get all of the prayer requests via email. The recent attrition rate is not something I'm comfortable with, quite frankly. Death's reminders are an irritating pain in the ass.
The only upside to death that I can think of is that it gives most people a good half-century of lead-walled denial. We know that we've got a one-way ticket to the grave, but we choose to not publicly acknowledge the Reaper's omnipresence. My early twenties were the best — I was a young professional entertainer who pretty much just flipped off Death every day until I was 27. Then I stopped everything for 15 years. It wasn't because I had any worries about mortality, I just didn't want anything to interfere with my career. Because I'm a professional comedian, I hope that Death got a good laugh out of my attitude.
Anyway, I have no deep thoughts on the subject, I just wanted to write about it because I miss my dad and this tenth anniversary has me pondering his absence more than usual. He was an interesting guy — a true modern-day Renaissance man. We were always the artsy Republicans. In various incarnations my dad was a jazz saxophonist, the president of a professional ballet company, and the co-owner of an art gallery.
In his forties, he became a successful commercial (big jobs) florist. At his memorial Mass, I told the huge crowd that he died on February 13 because he was a florist and just didn't want to go through another Valentine's Day (I have stories).
Dad's crowning achievement (other than his two kids, of course) was that he was a self-taught, avocational paleontologist who was so good at it that he has two dinosaurs named after him. Not bad for a hobby.
My dad absolutely loved life, and I'm carrying on his legacy. When I moved back to Tucson a few years after he died, an artist friend of his was helping me with the estate sale. She said, "Stan was so full of life that it seemed like he could never die."
I hope someone says something like that about me after I'm gone.
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