POSTERITY
This is my third and final post for this emotionally exhausting day. As I stated in the other two, it is the third of three posts that I am firing off today after a series of rapid-fire events that occurred in a 24-hour period starting on Sunday 1/27/08. Feel free, this being America and LiveJournal being what it is, to read this before during or after the other two, but they were written so that the sequence would be “Death”, “Life” then “Posterity”. No, I’m not kidding.
The thoughts I would like to explore here center around the question: for what do you want to be remembered when you are gone from this life? This post will not be as long as involved as the other two I have put together today, partially because I’m tired and partially because I don’t have as much to say on this topic because I’ve not explored it very much in my own life as of yet, although the last 24 hours compelled me to consider it carefully.
One of the things that kept going through my head at the funeral I attended this morning was, "There are SO few people here." Maybe 25-30 people: one of his two brothers, two nephews, a few high school pals, my mom, two of my sisters and myself, my uncle. Most of the attendees were quite elderly. Somebody made a joke before the service started that the obituaries are the Catholic sports pages: the deceased went to a Jesuit high school, and many of those there went there with him. At age 79, a similarly morbid joke goes, everybody first opens up their morning paper to the obituaries first to make sure they're not in them. The parish priest had never met him and gave the typical “I never met the deceased but I’ve talked to the family over the last few days” homily. My dad’s absentee eulogy was the only one given. The service lasted about a half hour.
Even his other brother, a wealthy attorney and the father of the two nephews, had come into town the previous week to say goodbye at the hospital and then didn’t bother to come back in for the service. My late aunt and my grandfather each had standing room only at their funerals, between 300 and 400 persons - not that the measure of a person is necessarily the number of people at their funeral, but still, doesn’t one want to leave an imprint behind? Then again, my dad mentioned in his eulogy that he had an entire stack of manuscripts that his friend had written, and that although he had not read all of them, some of them were “pretty out there.” He also said that he was never sure if his friend had any desire to be published, and didn’t think he’d ever had any success in that regard. I wonder what he wrote, and if there might still be an imprint evident there?
I was watching one of my absolute favorites, the Henry Rollins Show on the Independent Film Channel, last night and it was a rerun from last August. Gore Vidal was the guest. Rollins is so damn desperately HOT and smart and his show is the best (where else can you see a short piece of Janeane Garofolo imploring folks to get involved in American political life?) Vidal, as always, was controversial and way out there. What was particularly wonderful was that he is one of Rollins’ heroes, and Henry’s reaction to some of Vidal’s more outrageous statements about Bush and topics like impeachment, the war, corporations, and such, was guffawing, oopsing, even - believe it or not - giggling once or twice. Classic. Adorable. Not to be missed.
But the most valuable part of the show for me was when Vidal talked about the basic corruption of the national media, their unwillingness to take on the Administration, and the consequent obligation of what he called “writers for life” like himself to rage against the machine and speak truth to power in every way possible throughout their lives. This concept hit home for me in a very fundamental way, and speaks directly to where I’m trying to move in my life toward being able to much more expansively use my talents. Ideally, I’d like to be able to find a great-paying job that I love where I could write a lot and help people, perhaps even as an attorney since I have my license. I’d have to figure out how to do that and still be there for my kids every day as I have been since I quit the 9-to-5 rat race -- a very, very difficult balance to strike. This is what I was concerned about in the second, “Life” post. We’ll see what sort of compromise can be reached until they are old enough to fly on their own. For now, I am going a little (a lot) stir crazy just being home.
What about so far in my life? I have two wonderful children that I've worked extremely hard to nurture into caring, loving humans. My son's illness, despite his recent hospitalization, is largely in check. My daughter has some challenges, she seeks attention in reaction to her brother's illness too much and sometimes in odd ways -- I just got a call from my ex-wife that she insisted on going to middle school on crutches this morning after bumping her leg on the side of the pool at her swim team practice yesterday. Drama, drama, drama. I will probably have to head over to her school in a minute, one of the reasons why I'm home. I was the first openly gay father elected to the Oak Park Elementary School Board. I have served on several volunteer boards and done some other exemplary things, mostly politically, in the past. But my mark on the world, at 48, is so far minimal compared to what I’d like to do during what I hope is the next half of my life. This is the dilemma with which I now struggle.
And what of the other folks about whom I have written today? Our late bear LJ colleague? My grandfather, who helped to start the first Italian old persons home and who touched thousands of persons with his volunteer work and by never saying no to anyone who ever asked him for help? The ninety-year-old birthday girl yesterday who had a room full of loving persons who were celebrating her continuing life and wishing her well as she shares her joy with them? Jim’s mom, whose pain continues and might diminish but might become worse and whose loved ones suffer right alongside because of her poor health at age eighty? When is the life she has lived sufficient and when is the time right to say “goodbye?” My dad's lonely deceased drunken friend? Did or have their legacies reached their expectations, much less anyone else's? Or does it matter what anyone else thinks, only oneself?