I might share this story every year but I’m going to share it again. Today would have been my grandmother’s 97^th birthday. We lost her on Christmas Day 2020.

34 years ago, I was offered tickets to the Royals game, really good seats. I told my mom and dad and they said “absolutely not. It’s your grandmother’s birthday and we’re having a party for her.” I was a little bent about it, but okay. I passed on the tickets and went to my grandmother’s birthday party.

I don’t remember a lot about the party, I remember this particular party was at my Aunt Eileen’s house she shared with a roommate, and I have a few small memories in my head of that party, but I do remember that it was the birthday that I missed Bret Saberhagen throwing his no hitter at Royal’s Stadium. I’ll tell you what though, and I’ll say it every day, all day long for anyone who will listen: I will never regret having spent one more evening and one more birthday party with my grandmother even if I missed this game.

At 22, obviously, I was pretty upset that I missed Royals baseball history like that. But at 56, I’m really glad I was there with my entire family, celebrating her.

I found this gift bag in my office today. It’s from Valentine’s Day 2024, as you can see completely forgotten in time. But probably the last little gift bag that my mom ever gave me. She was all about putting together little treats for all of us kids and grandkids and cousins and what have you. I remember as exciting as vacations were when we were younger, it was equally exciting to see what she’d put in our little travel bags that she put together for us. There were always books, games, as I got older she even let me pick out a couple of cassette tapes for my travel bag but I couldn’t open them until we got on the road. Mom knew how throw a party, and she knew how to spoil people she loved.

I probably should throw these treats away but I am so blessed that I walked in there today and saw this bag sitting on top of a filing cabinet and got to take this little trip down memory lane.

(Clever play on Simon and Garfunkel, no?)

It’s like fall outside. This morning is one of those days that remind me of the days my mom would sing “Oh what a beautiful morning / Oh what a beautiful day…” It’s Sunday morning, and because of this it would be one of her favorite times of the week. On a good Sunday, she’d be headed to Church, ( all of the Church families I remember from past years: Sunset Hill, Tri-City, Linden, First Baptist NKC, Towerview…) and Sunday School, Church service, small groups, even children’s church in the older days brought her so much joy.

She’d probably see this sun comin up and think… well, I’ve already shared it.

Spotify just offered up a playlist, “Thrifted,” that celebrates 25 years of Ben Folds’ “Whatever and Ever, Amen” album, and the song “Brick.”

Now, everyday, especially on Facebook or Twitter, I’m reminded in some way that I’m getting older and things that seem like they just happened yesterday are indicative of just how old I am. This one hit different though.  Maybe it’s because I was an ADULT when Ben Folds hit the scene, and so since I’m still an ADULT that album must have been a few years ago, right? Even New Kids on the Block popping up with a new video recently didn’t hit this hard, because hey, I was a senior when they had that breakthrough album so we’re all part of the same universe.

The seeming paradox of Ben Folds’ Brick being 25 years old just adds another layer to all of this.  Life moves fast, things change, we get old.  Dropping my daughter off at the back of my alma mater, where she’s a sophomore, I quipped “where do kids smoke now that they’ve built this rear entrance over the smoking area?” She at first seemed genuinely shocked there WAS a smoking area for students, but then explained people just VAPE in the bathroom now.  If you’re part of my generation, I don’t need to deconstruct that entire exchange into all the pieces that apply to my discussion here. (I’m also ignoring the fact that as I am typing this very sentence it occurs to me that sometime in the next few months I am going to be prompted about my 35^th High School reunion…which doesn’t help my demeanor in the moment.)

Time is a fickle funny thing.  My wife, being 8 years younger than me, is on a different sliding scale of history altogether.  Sometimes I must stop and think about when a particular movie came out or TV series was on the air before I begin discussing it as if she experienced it in the same context I did.  Even so, we still share a general commonality that puts us in the same lifeboat I guess…even if I was graduating high school when she was just turning 10.

I think what is on my mind right now though is the shift that comes in life where we stop counting down…looking back on memories and reconciling just how long ago this or that happened and how that reflects on how old we are…and when we start really looking forward and contemplating how much longer we’ve got left.  It’s like that point in a game of Jenga where you know that one of those side blocks is going to cause the game to end, but you just don’t know which one. 

I had a longtime client come in today to pick up her taxes. She’s 91 years old, and she’s been coming as far back as I can recall.   She had a tax question for me, So I took a moment with her to see if I could help.  What she wanted to know was if she dies this year, based on her current tax situation, would her kids (I use that term tongue in cheek, given that they are in their 60s themselves) need to file a tax return for her next year.  My mom spoke up and in classic Bonnie fashion asked “Why, are you planning on dying?” and of course the client laughed and said “well, I’m 91 so I just want to be prepared.” It’s a fair question: I had another nonagenarian pass away in December, and she had driven herself to the office last year in February to bring us her stuff as usual.  Even when you think you’ve got all the time in the  world, you never know.  Even the world doesn’t have all the time in the world. I’m fascinated thinking of all the ways our brains adapt as we age, and all the ways they don’t. I do think sometimes about how much time I might have left, but guess as I might we don’t usually know unless we are facing a life ending illness. I guess maybe the key is to just keep pulling blocks out and enjoying the game until my tower finally tumbles.

I nearly died a little over a month ago.  I won’t go into the numbers or the specifics, but, I had an infection in my blood and the general consensus among medical professionals was I am lucky to have survived it, and had I waited any longer to get to the ER I wouldn’t have. Aside from how miserably sick I was, I wasn’t really aware in the moment.  There wasn’t a “life flashing before my eyes” near-death experience.  In fact, it was over the course of several days that the understanding finally washed over me.

What do you do with that kind of thing?  This whole “life is short and delicate and precious” epiphany that’s normally reserved for funerals and cancer diagnoses landed in my lap as I struggle with recovering from being so very ill and also recovering with everything that fell by the wayside at work.  I can’t simply trek up to the top of Everest in a search for more answers or study philosophy or sit around trying to write about it… there’s a lot to be doing. 

The idea of a bucket list, coming up with things I’d like to do before I die but sitting on that list like most everyone else does and thinking “I’ll get around to it” is not going to cut it for me.  I’ve decided on a “fuck it” list.  These are the things that cross my mind as urgent and not worth risking missing out on, so when they pop into my head I’ll just say “fuck it, let’s go!” and do it. I hope to write about my fuck-it moments as they come to light.

 I tried explaining this sort of urgency to a friend recently but she missed the point entirely, so I’ll speak to this in no uncertain terms: right now, in the wake of experiencing the fragility of life, I’m not ok with waiting around on much of anything.  If it’s in my control, I’m going to make it happen and do it when it feels right, let the chips fall where they may, and deal with any fall out after. Since I lost my dad in January 2020 I’ve tried desperately to live a little more mindful of showing people what they mean to me, of taking the opportunity to do the right thing, and of putting as many good deeds out in the universe as possible.  I mean, that’s the minimum any of us can do, right? Tip generously, love fiercely, act thoughtfully.  

For better or worse, the entire concept of Facebook memories has changed the way we recall entire swathes of our lives.  When a relationship ends, you can change settings in Facebook so that you don’t see any of the memories involving that person any more, but, where’s the fun in that?  I’ve sat by while friends peruse the daily jaunt down memory lane and cringe at posts about the “love of their life,” knowing full well that ship has long since sailed.

A few days ago, I had one such memory come along.  A post from an ex that highlighted what a good person I was, how nice and thoughtful and giving and generous I was, and how appreciated I was. I use the past tense here because, given the current circumstances, maybe these thoughts no longer apply.  In the wake of accusations and indictments that have since come to bear, my character has been rewritten in that chapter of her story. Fair enough.  This particular memory had a comment from another friend, though, reiterating that I am, in fact, the “cream of the crop.”

I should probably take this memory in its entirety: the context of the situation at the time, the viewpoint of my ex then as well as my friend in their situation then and sock it away for a rainy day. The human psyche doesn’t work that way though, does it? I hover around the idea of this entire exchange and land back where I often do: yeah, but so?  Am I any less single right now because of all of these great character traits?  Being “the crème of the crop” doesn’t matter much if someone isn’t interested in the kind of crop you are. I’ve said for years now: I’m much cooler in my head.

I guess we all struggle a lot with the understanding that our take and viewpoint is only valid up to the point we are willing to accept that it is ours and ours alone. How often are we cruising through our lives, daydreaming as we speed along, totally ignoring the obvious indicators that are telling us that we are getting it all wrong? What’s the saying… when someone shows you who they are, believe them?  Why is that part so difficult for so many of us?

You can’t be in love with the idea of someone, or what you think someone might be, you have to be in love with someone. That’s deeper than living under the same roof with someone, or talking about future plans with someone, or wasting months and years or our lives because we convince ourselves there’s more to all of it than there ever really was.  Being in love with someone isn’t something we do individually, it can only ever be something we do together. If we aren’t doing it with a shared sense of purpose, and with a shared understanding, drive and desire, then what are we “in” at all? I can look back at every failed relationship and pinpoint exactly the moment I should have seen that I wasn’t in anything with anyone else but myself.

There’s something very refreshing about shared sense of purpose and having a partner who is as interested in what they bring to the table to share with you as you are with them. I mean, I guess.  I don’t have much expertise on this at all; it’s something I’ve only watched from the other side of the room.  It’s easy to convince yourself that if you throw yourself all in and give all those things; if you’re a “good person” and “nice and thoughtful and giving and generous” that surely the target of all this effort will love you back, right? That’s the catch, really.  None of it matters if you aren’t what they want. We have to be prepared to walk away at the first indication someone is careless with our heart. Once our hearts have been abused by someone we trusted, we chip away at the ability to trust again. We can’t allow ourselves to risk future happiness and the ability to go all in on someone who is only trying to advance their own agenda.   

It’s been almost a year now since I lost my father.  It’s strange to think that exactly a year ago, while his health had in fact been declining, he was still working almost everyday in the office with us, getting up every morning like he had all my life, going out into the work world making things better for his clients and building a better life for his family.

Thursday there will be a memorial for an old friend from high school who was an equally good man.  Saturday, my grandmother’s memorial.  These things will continue to come with more and more frequency now that I’ve come of a certain age.  In death, there’s nothing fair as far as the living are concerned, yet, what’s fairer than death itself?  It comes for all of us sooner or later, and we all go out on equal terms.  Some sooner, some later, all of us winding up at the end of our journey in the same boat as the next person.

What gives me pause are those moments we cannot fathom as being our last.  One week before my dad passed, he was in the office for the last time, although we didn’t know that then.  I had driven him to a doctor’s appointment earlier that morning, the last time we’d be alone in his Jeep, although we didn’t know that then.  It was the last conversation we’d share alone as father and son.  I remember we talked about Salvador Perez having become a US Citizen the day before; and that I didn’t forget the turn off of Ward Parkway to get to the doctor’s office like I had every other time we had went. 

More than these little things that happened in the last week of his life, though, are the events that were no where near the end and we had no way of knowing they would be the last of their kind.  In July, the previous summer, I had went with him to the lake house, so we could pick up work from our client in Harrison, Arkansas.. who also happened to be his dentist and a close family friend.  He had dental work done.  We had dinner at Cantina Laredo on the Branson Landing.  And the next morning we saw the client again, stopped and had the best breakfast I had ever eaten ( I told him as much) at the Ranch House in Harrison, and headed back home.  In July, 2019, he saw the dentist for the last time, we went to the lake together for the last time, he (although it was just a bump) rear ended someone for the last time.  6 months before the end of life, our lives experienced the end of some things we had always assumed there would be a next time. It was our last summer together and while we never really spoke of it, it was there in front of us the entire time.

So today, I know there won’t be another trip to the lake with my dad.  I won’t get a chance to tell my friend Erick the kind of impact he made on my life, and I won’t hug my grandmother again and tell her I love her.  But what are we doing about all the stuff in between?  In this race to the last summer…because each year that passes, that birthday I have in August becomes more and more likely a candidate as my final one… are we, am I, making sure that we live in each moment in a such a way there are no regrets that it might have been the last conversation, the last fish we caught, the last sandwich we made for our child, the last kiss we had with our one true love…are we living in the moment and present enough that when we do look back later there are no regrets or wistful thoughts about what might have or should have been?

When we lose someone, it’s easy to remind ourselves that we need to tell everyone we love that we love them.  It’s easy to find in that moment of loss inspiration to speak the things that are mired in our day to day and lost to routine and everything we never have time for because of work or stress or life.  What if being present, living in the moment, LOVING in the moment, every day…all day…became the routine instead of a victim to the routine?

I honestly don’t know if I have written my last poem, hugged my children for the last time, told the woman that I love with every fiber of my being that I need her like water and air and a meal and a bed, for the last time.  But today, in this present moment, I’m doing something to be sure that while I’ll be gone and not be around to regret any of it, that I will have done something on my end to make sure everyone in my life knows exactly where my heart was when I’m no longer around to show them, and hopefully that will soften their regret a little bit, too.

At my mom and dad’s house Christmas Decorating is an Olympic sport. My dad long fancied himself the Clark Griswold of the neighborhood, although in later years he toned it down some it still was a huge part of the holiday season for him.  Even so, this was not what stood out about Christmas for my mom and dad.

In the living room, we always have a smaller Christmas tree.  The main tree is in the hearth room, but, the smaller tree really defined my parent’s holiday.  See, this tree is where they would put their gifts to one another; and to be honest, there were usually as many presents here for the two of them as there were under the main tree for everyone else.

Dad and mom would try and out do each other on gift tags.  You might find a tag that says “To: My Bonnie From: Your Steve” but, usually it would be something much more exotic and often PG 13 if not rated R.   I saw “to my Faye Wraye from Your King Kong” once, I’m sure, and “Sexy Mama from Your Loverboy” was a perennial favorite …but often they got even racier than that.  A big Christmas tradition for me each year was reading those tags, and blushing bright red a time or two. 

This year, the little tree in the living room sits alone with not a present in sight.  Dad was getting pretty rough by Christmas last year, which, seems like a decade ago after the year we have had.  Mom and I talked over lunch today about a number of things not the least of which was how thankful we are that 2020 has put limitations on the holiday, because the mere thought of Christmas as usual…without him… is heartbreaking.  Maybe one of the saddest things I’ve experienced this year is their tree, all alone, without a tag to be read, and the idea that late Christmas morning they won’t be handing one another gifts and sharing the love and joy that always made Christmas here exactly what they sing about: the most wonderful time of the year.