“And in the end it’s not the years in a life it’s the life in the years” Abraham Lincoln
It hits me at different times, sometimes on Sunday evening and the latest is usually Monday morning. After I have published a story, I start to think, “What the fuck am I going to come up with next?” I have hundreds of these and at some point, I am convinced I will have nothing to say. I know for a fact I am not that interesting and slamming into the wall is no more than one empty thought away.
So, there I was, this past Monday morning. I was sitting in the darkness before dawn, with my cup of coffee and not a single thought on my mind. I don’t know why, but I suddenly thought about my late neighbor’s upcoming Celebration of Life. The dark humor of it immediately hit me. There is nothing contemporary about it. It is yet again, another euphemism for the most dreaded words in the universal dictionary: DEATH and MORTALITY.
My neighbor and his wife moved into the house of his late father a couple of years ago. I really liked his Dad. He was somewhere in his early nineties when he passed. I loved watching him walk down the driveway of his home. There was a wonderful elegance in his carriage. After his passing, his son and daughter-in-law moved in. They immediately got busy on the house and its surroundings and never stopped until his son stopped.
I liked Val, very much. This son of a bitch always had a cigarette in his mouth. He was in great shape, the body of a surfer, which he always was and bitched about being so busy on the house, he wasn’t making enough time for it. He knew every single guy that came to the house to do work. He came from that world. Aside from meticulously maintaining the grounds, he kept his truck cleaner than an operating room. His attention to detail was mind blowing. I am someone with a 23 year old Lexus, having lifted the hood only a handful of times.
When our paths crossed, usually on my way to work, we would talk briefly. One of the last conversations I had with him was about the three of us getting together to talk about their recent travels to Japan and an upcoming trip to New Zealand. My affection was totally genuine. He was just a good guy, a rarity to me these days.
I hadn’t seen any activity around the house for a while and I found out he had pancreatic cancer, which made no sense to me, not like it is supposed to anyway. I was hoping to see him, which I did. Before I started my obsessive, weighted vest, rucking, up and down German Hill, I’d walk to work a couple of days week, right passed their house.
I set out that one morning, earbuds screaming in my head and finally saw him, sitting with his wife. I immediately decided I wanted to tell him I loved him and to make him laugh. I walked over and was breathless at the sight. He was emaciated, with a mustard colored, crepe paper skin covering his skeleton. Death was with him. I told him I loved him and that there was no way I’d ever clean his fucken truck. I walked down their driveway, crying my eyes out. It was my very small way of celebrating his life, before it exhaled away.
Now, I am still on my steps thinking about this idea of celebrating life and I remembered my own. Somewhere in February 2005, I had a canoeing accident in Hanamaulu Bay, the filthiest body of water in all of Kauai. I had been living here a bit less than two years and decided I needed to get closer to the Hawaiian experience. I joined a six-person canoe club that met at the aforementioned cess pool. One evening of ridiculously, obnoxiousType A training, we had a very common huli experience, overtaken by a wave from behind.
I slammed my shin into the bench in front of me and split it open, exposing the sheath covering the bone. After around 45 minutes in that filthy water, I finally made my way to shore and drove myself to the ER. The on-duty moron cleaned the wound and stitched it up, with no thought of antibiotics. This is not the full story and not for now anyway.
I was home for less than two days and ended up going to the ER on a Sunday night. I was immediately operated on to do something called debridement, removing infected skin. I was in the hospital for two weeks and two more of those procedures. Before being sent home for an excruciatingly painful month of recovery, I was told that not only were they thinking of amputation, but my death would not have been a shock.
The reason for sharing that incredibly abbreviated experience of mine has to do with feeling death in that room with me. There is way more to the story, but again, that is not the story for today. Seeing death that morning, sitting with my neighbor, reminded me of that unforgettably intimate feeling, a lurking darkness, wanting to suck the light right out of your eyes and the breath from your lungs. I know death better than most. There is no language to describe it, because it doesn’t speak, it is just there, whispering to the hairs on the back of your neck.
My 60th birthday was coming up a handful of months after the most horrible experience I’ve ever had. I maniacally dedicated myself to getting my life back. I fought a silent fight with myself, as the only witness to what I endured. Trust me, I am not a brave guy, just an ordinary schmuck like every one of you. It wasn’t my time to go and somewhere deep down, inside a place I never knew existed, I overcame a depth of pain beyond any adjectives. I wanted to live. I wanted to celebrate life.
My 60th birthday was coming up a handful of months after all of that. I had done what I never thought I could pull off, regaining ownership of my life. I actually printed invitations to my Celebration of Life and threw a serious party at a house my son and soon to be daughter-in-law had rented, right in the Kukuiula Small Boat Harbor. My life saving surgeons even showed up. One of the motorcycle riders jumped in the pool with all his clothes on. I was just so thrilled to be alive. It was quite a party.
I am still sitting on the stoop last Monday morning and I have not written a word. It has been silently waiting for this page tonight. Unlike most of my stories, I knew what I wanted to write, start to finish, which is this story. I want you to celebrate your life right now. Truthfully, after you’re dead, who truly gives a shit, beyond a handful? We are all so busy, heads down, minds enmeshed in minutiae. If you have gotten this far, please stop, take a deep breath, inhale and exhale, look to the heavens and say, Thank You.
I want to thank Daniel and Ida Feinstein for making my life possible. I celebrate the both of you for this incredible gift you have given me.
Travel safe, Val.
Blessings.