The Last Roundup

I’m not one to read obituaries even though a lot of my friends have fallen into that habit lately. Yet I couldn’t help but notice that several remarkable folks from the Palm Springs Writers Guild have passed away over the last several years. While I wasn’t close friends with any of them, I did admire their skill at crafting wonderful stories, their dedication to the art of writing and their ongoing enthusiasm for the Writers Guild.

No one likes to talk about dying. It was seldom a subject of discussion when I was growing up. It seemed to happen oh so subtly with Uncles and Aunts passing away at first. Then one’s parents and finally close friends and associates. Gradually it occurs to you that dying is now a part of life’s equation for you and a lot of folks you know.

We all assume our lives are going to follow a certain predictable pattern. We’re born; we grow up, grow old, and then die. In the ‘Lion King’ it’s called the circle of life. It’s also used to describe life on the African savannah. A similar theme can be found in a Christian hymn written in 1907 and made popular by the Carter Family in 1935. It’s entitled ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken.’

So we usually don’t allow ourselves to think about death until something jars us back to reality. It might be a near-death experience, a catastrophic illness or the sudden demise of someone close to us. Alternatively, as in my case, you’ve been around long enough to see this pattern of life and death enter its last phase.

Sharon’s mother passed away a couple of years ago. It wasn’t unexpected. Her husband had died a couple of years earlier. Charlotte’s health had been deteriorating for some time. But suddenly becoming an orphan can be tough on any adult even one as strong as my wife.

Sharon’s friend Steve was a very successful businessman, Rotary philanthropist and loving grandfather. He seemed healthy all of his life and then one day he became unbalanced on his feet Five months later he passed away from brain cancer.

Kathy was Sharon’s sister-in-law. She broke her ankle one spring. She had it set then operated on twice since the incident. Then she died unexpectedly from an infection. In each instance, these deaths were a grim reminder of the fragility of life and the need to live each day as if it were our last.

Several friends have commented about bad things happening in threes. I hadn’t thought about it before now. Of course growing up, I knew about ‘the day the music died’ and the fact that Jimmy Hendrix, Janice Joplin and Jim Morrison all died within weeks of one another in 1970.

I usually don’t believe in folk tales, old wives stories, or fables. But after these three deaths occurred so close together it got me to thinking it. Those were three life-changing events, expected and otherwise, in less than a month and a half.

Folklorists say that the belief that good or bad things come in threes is an ancient superstition that remains a strong belief among many people today. Americans especially seem to have a propensity to see things in threes. For Native Americans, it’s fours and for the Chinese, it’s five.

“It’s very deep in our culture in terms of religion – the father, son and holy ghost,’ explained Alan Dundes, a professor of anthropology and folklore at the University of Southern California at Berkley. He goes on to comment: “It’s in our names. We all have three names. And numerous three-worded phrases like ‘win, lose or draw’ ‘we shall overcome’ and ‘snap, crackle and pop.’

I think it all comes down to your own belief system. The yin and yang of our universe means there will be both good and bad in your lifetime.  Bad luck and good can come in threes, fours, fives and more. It’s all a question of how you want to process those events. If you’re fatalistic it can be grim. If you’re realistic it’s a fact of life. Individual numbers don’t mean a thing.

What does matter is the simple fact that ‘no one gets out of here alive.’ For each one of us there will be an accounting whether we’re present for it or not. We will all have a final tabulation. It’ll either be on our death bed or done by others lamenting our loss. It will be a tabulation of who we were as individuals, spouses, parents, grandparents, friends and associates. It will include who we loved, liked and impacted. It will be the kids we left behind. Then their kids, our grandchildren, and our legacy with them.

But most importantly we will have to answer whether we made a difference with our lives. Was our existence all worthwhile to others especially those closest to us? And for ourselves, did we make a difference while we were here on earth. So far, after seventy-seven years of living my life as best I can, I think I’m good to go.

I kissed my wife goodbye, told my kids and grandkids I loved them, and went for a long trail hike. The climb is strenuous, the footing unsteady and the hiking poles a life-saver. But life is good and I can still climb when I want to. So I’ll embrace this slough as long as I can. Dirt, dust, and spectacular views along the way.

Sins of Omission

When you think about the things you will regret when you’re 80 or 90 or 100, it’s probably the things that you didn’t do. They’re your sins of omission. Very rarely do we regret something we tried but failed at. It’s those actions, connections, statements, or gestures that we should have made - but didn’t - which will haunt us as we’re making our final tabulation of time spent here on earth.

When we were all young and dumb, the world was a rainbow landscape full of wonderful adventures and opportunities. Each of us set out to become whatever we thought we should be…at the time. The world was our oyster and we meant to have it all.

It’s funny how reality evolves and our past lives and aspirations finally catch up with us. That winding road called ‘life’ is either running smooth as asphalt or rough like gravel. And yet none of us want to get off the road even if the ride isn’t what we expected it to be after all these years.

It’s been fifty-four years since I turned twenty-one and shed my cloak of anonymity to adorn myself with the costume of adulthood. Now many of us are at a point in our lives where reflection is more than a glass of chardonnay framed within a sunset or a cold brew among high school buddies.

Our current life style is an accumulation of habits born long before our birth. For some of us it was modeled after our parent’s pioneering excursion into life. For others, it was a process of discovery, loss, acceptance and rejection. And finally our life style became us on a daily basis and we weren’t even aware of it. It’s only now that the accumulation of excess and/or scarcity raises its hidden head.

I had a quote given to me by the President of the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting back in the early 70s.  It’s guided me for many years in how to live my life. The quote goes:

‘The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not to give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized – and never knowing.’

Ernest Hemingway is quoted as saying that life is like a bank account. How you use it is solely your determination. You can withdraw it in a hurry and live a very short life. Or you can be diligent with your withdrawals and live, hopefully, much longer.

We can always try to rectify some of our mistakes or enhance our positive steps but age and reticence to change are usually huge obstacles to overcome. We’ve let life’s ebb and flow (our gypsy muse) guide us in this rhythm of life. For most of us, the process was organic and without a lot of thought. For me it was my first apartment, my first real job and the first time camping overnight during a long Minnesota winter.

And now quite unexpectedly, we find ourselves both benefiting and/or suffering from past investments of our youth. The things we did to ourselves, the deposits we made on our bodies, our finances, our love life and our children. We’re now at the stage of making withdrawals from our youthful decisions and indiscretions.

Our life investments have been made, squandered, lost, divested and set aside. Some things worked out and some others didn’t. Now we have the residue of our wisdom or luck or mistakes to live with for the rest of our lives. And all those life steps are now just a memory.

A career was hatched, grown and nurtured or changed many times over. That part of our lives is over unless boredom and fear of retirement pushes us in a new direction.

My bank account of friends isn’t the greatest. A reluctance to make an effort back then, despite the chiding by my wife, has left me lacking in that area. Yet what I do have in the vault is now priceless. One of my aspirations was to mine those rich veins of past friendships to see if I might unearth more nuggets there. Occasionally I’ll strike gold and rekindle a long lost almost forgotten friendship from the dusty archives of my past. It’s a blast and immensely satisfying.

Those random discoveries got me thinking about other friendships; past and future, strong and vapid, present and omnipresent. I thought about the friends I’ve had over the years. Some of them shared isolated points in my life; high school, college and work. Some were but fleeting incisions in the tenderness of my youth. Others were shared experiences like the military; isolated, vacuous and destined to crash with each discharge celebration where inane behavior in the barracks seemed to make perfect sense back then.

Most of those memories are lost now in that vacuum called life experiences. A few were found again but most are just fragrant memories of a life well spent. Like separating wheat from the shaft, I’d love to rekindle a few of those friendships and nourish them back to the point of a commonality we once shared; a kind of harvesting from my ‘lost years.’ Another aspiration was to explore my talents as a writer. Another was to teach the grandchildren.

I guess that’s why I want to continue seeking out opportunities to teach the grandchildren and give them experiences I never had growing up. A recent family trip to London and Paris is a good example. Eleven people living together in a foreign country for 10 days and accumulating wonderful experiences along the way.

So it all comes down to friends and family. I am in a good place in my life. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone anymore! As an artist, I love creating stories in many different genres and I intend to continue writing until my pen dries up or I go blind. I’d like to take my friends and family along on this journey of self-discovery and see whatever else comes our way.

Fixin' to Die

I’ve reached that point in my life where people I know are starting to die.

Of course, there were others who died back when I was young. But youth and little personal connection meant a somber night at the funeral home because I had to not because I cared. As I grew older there was the occasional unexpected demise of a casual friend or associate but never some-one close enough to move my heart.

Me as a Teenager

I guess I became more aware of my own mortality and that of others when my early morning sidekicks began to pass away. It was those scholars of teenage bliss and angst. My early morning rock and roll companions who trudged with me through twenty-below-zero snow banks to deliver the morning newspaper. They sang to me though my transistor radio and told me all about love and loss and my best years ahead.

One of my favorite song-writing poets died recently. Leonard Cohen spoke to me in a dozen different voices and languages; all of which tugged at my heart and soul.

Now even some folks closer to me, in-laws, parents and relatives have passed on. No one is fixin to die but it’s coming around for all of us. My next door neighbor died a couple of weeks ago. We weren’t close and he wasn’t very friendly but we talked occasionally and joked and philosophized about the world. Now he’s gone too.

Like most past generations, death was one of those topics that seldom if ever was addressed among my relatives. It was never broached in my immediate family when I was growing up. Through either a reticence to admit the inevitable, fear, or abject denial the topic was seldom broached. People grew old, got sick and died. Then someone had to write their obituary.

Strange though it might sound, I’ve always admired those folks with the foresight and fortitude to write their own obituaries.

I think it would be a challenge yet immensely rewarding to write an open honest obituary. I believe a funeral should be the time of celebrating a life well led. A finely crafted obituary can share with friends and strangers happy memories over sadness. It forces the writer to address one key question: what is my legacy? What did I do here on earth to warrant the pride and hopefully the gratitude of my peers, friends, family, and others?

All those thoughts and more have been compiled in yet another file folder for a future musical play I’ve love to write. It’s about a funeral and the celebration that takes place there.

Since none of us have the advantage of knowing how long we’re going to live, I think it’s important to reflect on what we can do now that we’re still alive. Beyond the standard of having a will, staying healthy and exercise, I do have a few more thoughts.

We should each day as if it is our last. Not in a morbid kind of way but rather a daily celebration of the wonder of life and friends and family all around us. Helping others even in the most simplest of ways can mean everything to someone else. And lastly, follow your dreams whatever they are. As the cliché goes, life is too short to live it any other way.

Our Final Tabulation

We all know our lives are supposed to follow a certain predictable pattern. We’re born, grow up, grow old and then die. In the ‘Lion King’ it’s called the circle of life. It’s also used to describe life on the African savannah in several books. A similar theme can be found in a Christian hymn written in 1907 and made popular by the Carter Family in 1935. It’s entitled ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken.’

So we usually don’t allow ourselves to think about death until something jars us back to reality. It might be a near-death experience, a catastrophic illness or the sudden demise of someone close to us. That’s just what happened to me.

Sharon’s mother passed away in October. It wasn’t unexpected. Her health had been deteriorating for some time. But suddenly becoming an orphan is tough on any adult even one as strong as my wife.

Sharon’s friend Steve was a very successful businessman, Rotary philanthropist and loving grandfather. Last Fall he was fine then one day he became unbalanced on his feet and five months later he passed away from brain cancer.

Kathy was Sharon’s sister-in-law. She broke her ankle last spring. She had it set then operated on twice since the incident. A couple of weeks ago she died suddenly from an infection. In each instance these deaths were a grim reminder of the fragility of life and the need to live each day as if it were our last.

Several friends have commented about bad things happening in threes. I hadn’t thought about it before now. Of course growing up, I knew about ‘the day the music died’ and the fact that Jimmy Hendrix, Janice Joplin and Jim Morrison all died within weeks of one another in 1970.

I usually don’t believe in folk tales, old wives stories or fables. But after these three deaths occurred so close together it got me to thinking it. Those were three life-changing events, expected and otherwise, in less than a month and a half.

Folklorists say that the belief that good or bad things come in threes is an ancient superstition that remains a strong belief among many people today. Americans especially seem to have a propensity to see things in threes. For Native Americans, it’s fours and for the Chinese, it’s five.

“It’s very deep in our culture in terms of religion – the father, son and holy ghost,’ explained Alan Dundes, a professor of anthropology and folklore at the University of Southern California at Berkley. He goes to comment: “It’s in our names. We all have three names. And numerous three-worded phrases like ‘win, lose or draw’ ‘we shall overcome’ and ‘snap, crackle and pop.’

I think it all comes down to your own belief system. The yin and yang of our universe means there will be both good and bad in your lifetime.  Bad luck and good can come in threes, fours, fives and more. It’s all a question of how you want to process these events. If you’re fatalistic it can be grim. If you’re realistic it’s a fact of life. Individual numbers don’t mean a thing.

What does matter is the simple fact that ‘no one gets out of here alive.’ For each one of us there will be an accounting whether we’re present for it or not. We will all have a final tabulation. It’ll either be on our death bed or done by others lamenting our loss. It will be a tabulation of who we were as individuals, spouses, parents, grandparents, friends and associates. It will include who we loved, liked and impacted. It will be the kids we left behind. Then their kids, our grand-children and our legacy with them.

But most importantly we will have to answer whether we made a difference with our lives. Was our existence all worthwhile to others especially those closest to us? And for ourselves, did we make a difference while we were here on earth.

So far, after seventy-three years of living my life as best I can, I think I’m good to go.

 

So I kissed my wife good-bye, told my kids and grandkids I loved them and went for a trail run.  Life is good. I want to embrace it as long as I can.

A Lovely Lady Died Today

My Mother-in-Law grew up in a world ruled by men but raised two daughters who pushed well past those boundaries. Now there is a granddaughter and two great granddaughters who are pushing those barriers out even further. The tracks of our lives continue just as the seasons come and go. A great grandson was born one day. Great Grandma Charlotte died the next. The circle of life had come around again.

Charlotte Faye Schumacher left few trappings of success behind. The house had been sold, her possessions either given to the children or sold at an estate sale. Her material goods kept shrinking with each move from the farm to a house in town to an assisted living facility to a nursing home. Now there was nothing left but for a few mementos passed out to the grandchildren. Nothing left but for the memories…good memories of a life well-lived.

In the end this wonderful woman left the world a much better place through the four children she raised and nurtured into true citizens of the world. They are all good people who followed a legacy born amid those old Nebraska sand farms of the ‘30s and ‘40s.

Row 2, farthest Left in overalls

Charlotte with her Dad

Despite dealing with sometimes crippling anxiety and bouts of depression Sharon’s mom held on to her faith and worked through her issues. Her own mother had died when she was just nine years old and her father died when she was eighteen.

She once told Sharon “You wouldn’t understand what it’s like to lose a parent unless it happens to you. Denis understands.” Charlotte and I shared that commonality of a single parent household. It was a common bond seldom talked about, but understood. We also shared a deep and abiding love for her daughter.

Occasionally we’d talk about growing up without a mother as she followed her father picking berries in Oregon and operating a bar in Nebraska. We related to one another that way and spoke a language unspoken but understood among survivors.

When she graduated from high school in Nebraska, Charlotte taught in a one room school house. She had no formal training. She just took a test and began teaching. She told us her secret was to stay one book ahead of her class. It seemed to work.

Charlotte & Delbert Schumacher Wedding

Then she met a man who was to be her rock for more than sixty-five years. Sharon’s mom used to tell folks she didn’t know how to cook when she first got married. She didn’t mention it was the end of World War II and there were no stoves available. So every morning they had cereal for breakfast. For lunch they had a sandwich. In the evening they went to her Mother-In-Law's for dinner.

In 1957, she followed her husband from Nebraska to Wabasha, Minnesota. She moved there without ever seeing the farm Grandpa Delbert had bought. When Charlotte arrived she found there was no kitchen sink in the farmhouse, but ironically the barn was in excellent shape. I guess that’s what counted in a farm family.

Charlotte told people she never adjusted to living in Minnesota but all my kids can remember were the thrills of finding baby kittens in the barn, tractor rides with grandpa and calling for Shep and Brady, her two favorite farm dogs. It wasn’t ‘Dick and Jane on the farm’ - but it came darn close.

Late in their retirement years her husband developed Alzheimer’s disease. For over two years she cared for her husband at home, tending to his every need. When it was time for him to go into the nursing home, she faithfully visited him as often as she could. They went to mass there every Sunday. She did what she had to do for the man she truly cherished. I Sat Down with God Today.

Sharon and her parents, Charlotte & Delbert

It was her daughter, The Girl with Seven Suede Jackets, who used to tell me of her nurturing upbringing on the farm. Sharon has spoken often about high school class trips and weekend jaunts with her mother acting as her personal chauffeur. She talked about their special trip to England, just the two of them.

Later on in years Sharon took her own grandchildren down to see great grandma Charlotte before the end. At times it was witnessing courage in the face of crippling angst and anxiety. They learned as Sharon did about one generation respecting the next.

Now the only remaining thread in great grandma Charlotte’s life are the four lives she left behind. From them, the many grandchildren and great-grandchildren that are a part of her legacy.

A great grandson was born the day before Charlotte died. In time he will hear the tales of life on the Wabasha farm from his own grandmother. He will learn of its tradition of hard work and faith that is his legacy. And he’ll be able to thank great grandma Charlotte for those memories and lessons in life.

Her legacy lives on in her two daughters, a granddaughter and two great granddaughters born of that same steeled resolve. 

Maya Charlotte LaComb and Charlotte Jane McMahon never knew their great grandma Charlotte very well. But her sterling examples of hard work, perseverance, compassion and caring is a legacy they are sure to carry on.

Charlotte Faye Schumacher could not have wished for anything more.