Late Fall or Early Winter?

 

Science Photo Library

In the past year, I have lost several friends and acquaintances.  It has brought me to the realization that it is the beginning of time for my generation to pass on.  It was not a sudden revelation but more like a gradual realization. 

I am not sure how to react.  It is certainly a bit sobering.  No matter how I react, the frequency of folks about my age passing away will increase in the coming years.  I will have to come to terms with losing close friends and moving forward without them.  Of course, this is assuming it is not my demise others will be coping with.  We are entering that season.

I remember when I first learned about death and that everyone will die.  I was not pleased to have this knowledge.  I was just a kid and I remember wondering “who invented this?”  It seemed like a bad design, a huge quality defect in the system.  Soon, like we all do, I just accepted that this is just a part of life.  It is inevitable. 

I played at a wedding in Detroit, maybe 10 years ago.  I was playing with my first band, the Johnites, it was a lovely reunion.  The parents of the bride wanted the same band that played at their wedding.  It was a pretty cool experience.  Midway through the evening, I realized there only a few people at the wedding my parents’ age.  They didn't even fill an entire table.  It was the first time I realized we were quickly becoming the elder generation.

I recall how my grandmother, who lived to 101, outlived all of her peers.  My mother expressed a bit of exasperation at seeing the same happen to her.

In December of 2018, my good friend Angel passed away.  It had a great impact on me and it took me a year to get my head around it and eulogize him in a blog.  As mentioned above, there have been four friends that passed away this past year that I want to eulogize and remember in this blog.  I have yet to do one of them.  Basically, it is the same reason as with Angel’s passing.  I start to write a remembrance, a eulogy, and basically don’t like what I am writing.  I believe my thoughts are clouded with sadness and emotion and I cannot capture the essence of the person and what the meant to me in exactly the right way.  So, I wait.  As the sadness dissipates with time and I reflect on my friend, I can write the right portrayal. 

I have several topics on which I have categories and a tagline.  I write about the music I play, For the Love of the Music, I write about Armenian themes and issues, Chidem Inch, about Quality, Annals of Quality, and now obituaries or eulogies.  I expect to write for or five of these in the next few weeks.  I would prefer never to have to write another, but that will not be the case.  My 50^th high school reunion was last Spring.   I was surprised how many of my classmates had passed on including about a third of the people I would have loved to see again.

This probably reads somewhat glum.  Oddly, I don’t really feel that glum and I am not sure why.  I guess it is more sobering than glum.  I look forward to posting the eulogies of my friends who passed away this past year.