INTIMATIONS OF MORTALITY

     Friday morning we attended the funeral service of a wonderful and kind man, half of a longtime Village couple. Over the past year we have lost several good friends and people we had gotten to know in the course of life. Some of these deaths were so sudden that there had been little or even no time to prepare for the loss.  I wondered what it all meant, that so many good people  had been taken from us.
     Years ago we had the whole world and all the time in the world to do what we wanted to do, what we wanted to accomplish but quicker than we had thought possible, here we are, enjoying retirement, yes, but also realizing that this is Act III and time for us to evaluate and change, if we can. Like it or not, we are closer to our Maker than we have ever been before.
     As I scanned the people attending the service on Friday, as I recalled the crowded service and burial of a good friend on the eve of Passover, I thought about people. We all make an effort to attend a funeral service, rearranging our time and plans, hugging family members with whom we had a falling out and the question is why? Why do we wait to do this? Why can we not take the effort while there is time to do something, to rectify a wrong, to smooth over a rough spot in the plain of life?
     I do not know the answer. Perhaps it is simply part of being human and the inability to let go of perceived wrongs, real and imagined. Reality is in the eye of the beholder and is not easy to overcome. I am just as guilty of doing this as other people and will try to improve but I know it will be difficult. In a recent book I had read there was a line that stated that the more you hold on to something, the stronger it becomes. Maybe we all need to think about that and understand what it means to us as we live our lives. But we must not fall into the trap of thinking that of course we are right and the others all wrong for there is right and wrong on both sides of an issue (and I am censoring myself now in an effort to follow what I have just said, difficult as it may be). I only hope that I can stick to this and hope that others will try the same thing. It is perhaps the only way we can survive in this world, us, as individuals and the world in general.
     Intimations of mortality, indeed.