Life and death
The new year is a renewal. The end is winter, death, decay. But there is always a balance.
My second family lost a grandfather. He was a Southern gentleman with a Yankee sensibility. My great-uncle seems to be giving up on life and hell, living in pain can drive anyone to it. The gray New York skies don't help a depression, and neither does confinement to a lonely Brighton Beach apartment overlooking the gray ocean. He doesn't complain. I am not to tell anyone what he told me, though it brought immediate tears to my eyes. Ever since his wife died he hasn't been the same. He has great stories, a paralyzed arm, and the best smile. I hope he finds his center, gets better, gets up.
My family's hair dresser crashed in a small plane a few days ago. He has cut my hair for more than ten years. It's impossible to grasp how people who you saw two weeks ago can no longer exist today. The tragedy of death really shows itself when it's someone who is young, when it's unexpected, when you feel the brush of doom close to you and yours. Overtone here of my old superintendent who took a great picture of my now deceased kitty, who survived 9/11 because he left work early, who would shyly ask me to go for a ride on his motorcycle and who was later killed by that same motorcycle before he was 30.
The balance is there, though. New life for old friends. A baby born to one of the old Shapiro 5 gang on Christmas morning, another baby on the way, and one already born a few months ago. College friends who really stay with you are there in ways it's hard to quantify, but you always want to reach out to them. Friends tip the scale toward the positive, the happy, the everything.
My second family lost a grandfather. He was a Southern gentleman with a Yankee sensibility. My great-uncle seems to be giving up on life and hell, living in pain can drive anyone to it. The gray New York skies don't help a depression, and neither does confinement to a lonely Brighton Beach apartment overlooking the gray ocean. He doesn't complain. I am not to tell anyone what he told me, though it brought immediate tears to my eyes. Ever since his wife died he hasn't been the same. He has great stories, a paralyzed arm, and the best smile. I hope he finds his center, gets better, gets up.
My family's hair dresser crashed in a small plane a few days ago. He has cut my hair for more than ten years. It's impossible to grasp how people who you saw two weeks ago can no longer exist today. The tragedy of death really shows itself when it's someone who is young, when it's unexpected, when you feel the brush of doom close to you and yours. Overtone here of my old superintendent who took a great picture of my now deceased kitty, who survived 9/11 because he left work early, who would shyly ask me to go for a ride on his motorcycle and who was later killed by that same motorcycle before he was 30.
The balance is there, though. New life for old friends. A baby born to one of the old Shapiro 5 gang on Christmas morning, another baby on the way, and one already born a few months ago. College friends who really stay with you are there in ways it's hard to quantify, but you always want to reach out to them. Friends tip the scale toward the positive, the happy, the everything.