A RETROSPECTIVE ON LIFE

        Life is strange. It hands you cards from the top and the bottom of the deck and often at inopportune times. It makes one think and evaluate and then just as you think you have it down pat - boom! There comes the next hit.
     So we came into NY for a reunion, one of those look forward to and dread at the same time events. How will everyone look? What will they think when they see me? Will the wars of high school still be there or are they forgotten and what's up with these warm messages from kids I barely spoke to you for four years? In any case, at least I will still see some old friends and play with some grandchildren.
     And no sooner than we got to the airport did we find that there was another life event that we had to try to make and that was a funeral. A good friend died from the massive stroke he had suffered last week. He and his wife are our friends, his daughter is close with our daughters, and his granddaughters are close friends to two of my granddaughters. It was a tragedy on many levels and for many generations and the friends came from all over - Midwood, New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester and the tears and the speeches flowed. A man was loved and respected and his death is deeply mourned.
     Life as a teenager, high school with its daily catastrophes that we can barely remember now or laugh at, especially when they are being repeated in the lives of grandchildren,,when there was idealism and hope, when there was a future. Contrast that with the end of life event, when one thinks and wonders. One wonders if they lived the life they had dreamed of, had they made a difference in the world, will they be missed, mourned, as this man was? Is their life fulfilling? Are they hanging on or still contributing, still thinking, still living? Do they have plans for the future or are they dwelling in the past?
     We all have these moments, moments that cause us to think and ponder, to muse and regret, to look forward to what life still has to give us, still holds for us, and what our life has been in the past.
     The world appears to be exploding around us, with economic protest growing, even turning violent at times. Governments are falling, rulers being impeached and wars are being waged all over, kids being the soldiers and women the currency of war. Whole countries are migrating into others and xenophobia is growing apace. If one reads of the conditions before WWI and WWII, one can grow frightened. T here is much similarity. There is much distrust of those who lead and much cynicism amongst the leaders of society with money being the most worshipped deity on the planet. Drones of the future are flying around in the present. Weather catastrophes seem to be occurring daily, yet there are those who still argue against warming. Society is even more broken than before with class differentials more striking and the middle class, that class which has been the strength of every progressive society is now struggling and disappearing.
     So - look forward to the past, - excuse the oxymoron - but please, do continue to look forward to the future and even though we all will die at one point or another - you know, death and taxes - we do have much to contribute till then.
    A retrospective on life is hard, funny, sad, happy and frightening, all at the same time. It can even be confusing, especially when events conspire to come at the same time and both demand thought and evaluation, soul searching, but it can be handled and even used to improve the current status quo.
     May we all know only happy events from now on - and dear Lord - I hope that includes the Sunday reunion!!