My brother Henry died five years ago on the day this posts, April 6. He would be 75 years old now. My mother would be 100, and my father would be 105.
It’s been long enough for me to get used to my family not being here, but I haven’t. I feel like they are somewhere over there, in some reality next door to this one. There has certainly been enough going on in this reality over the last few years to make me think there must be a better one somewhere.
I no longer think to myself that I need to tell one of them about something that has happened, or something I did around the house, or, more important, a question that I would like to get an answer to. That phase ended a while ago, but the need did not.
As Snoopy* once said, “You never miss the water till the well runs dry.”
So here I am, still with a lot of questions that need to be answered. I don’t know whether they would be able to answer them, but at least the questions would be there, out in the open.
By the way, if you are wondering whether you look old, you know the answer when someone sees you walking your dogs and asks you how old you are, and then congratulates you on being able to walk a dog. “Thank you. Still working at your age, eh?”
But here I am, still breathing. There is a bit of cosmetic damage, and some internal parts are not working as well as they once did. My mind seems to work almost as well as it did, let’s say five years ago. But then, maybe I wouldn’t know.
But I was talking about asking questions.
No one warned me that I would get old, and still not be wise. In fact, no one said a god-damned thing about that, and I want to know why. I thought we were supposed to be able to figure things out about life, the universe, and everything when we got this close to the end of it. Was I standing behind the door when wisdom was handed out? Maybe I was looking out the window, daydreaming, and I missed hearing my name called. Maybe they ran out of wisdom; it does seem to be in short supply today.
However it happened, here I am, needing questions answered. There is no one to answer them, and I’ll be damned if I can answer them myself. Is it like that for everyone?
This is the way I think of my family.
I don’t know when this photo was taken. It looks like the early 1990’s, possibly a little earlier than that. I don’t know where I was, or who took the photo.
Maybe that’s the way they look now, in that other reality.
* I’m pretty sure Snoopy said it once, but the only citation I can actually find was Franklin’s grandfather.
If we lived the ways our ancient ancestors did, these questions would have answers. We would have heard all the stories while sitting around our tribal fires. Instead we adopted this nuclear family reality and left all the questions unanswered.
In the Jewish tradition we light a yahrzeit candle that burns for 24 hours on the anniversary of our loved one’s passing. It’s a way of holding grief and memory together. I wish we were neighbors, Mark. I would light a candle for Henry.
Hope things are okay there for you and Leah and the doggies.
Hello Mark, You don’t know me, but I read your comment on today’s Language Log post about AI Anchorman @EdisonGPT. Thank you for the mullet link! Zachary Taylor, the two Roosevelts, and Jimmy Carter were great. Warren Harding’s clear eyed gaze was striking even with black and white film. I was least fond of mulleted GWH Bush and Eisenhower…!
My primary reason for comment is this:
I haven’t gotten used to my parents not being here either. It hasn’t been quite as long for me (2009)… yet I often move to pick up the phone at work. when I have a free moment and want to chat, just like I did almost every day since my first job at age 20. The impulse and the need doesn’t diminish.
And then there are the questions, so many of them, especially for my father. I asked him about everything that was important but unknown to me. If he didn’t know, or hadn’t thought about it, I could trust him to tell me. But there was so very much that he did know, or had thought about, or remembered his own parents telling him!
Thank you for sharing your family photo. You are a handsome man. I can see the resemblance to your father. Your parents are smiling. I wish I had a photo with my parents like that. Maybe your parents and your brother ARE in some reality over there, orthogonal or closer to this one. I hope my parents are there too.