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Thanks To The Living
The Dumaine boys did an outstanding job of cleaning the street today which I had noticed in passing earlier while airing up a tire at the Shell--have to make the U-turn at Dumaine. So I'm dropping by now because I miss them some; take some pictures, and Glynn says, "you takin' those over to your house?" and I paused before answering the slightly awkward question, thinking about what he said and then said, "yes." "To remember us by?" he said, and I was a little put out by the finality of that so I smiled condescendingly and said, "I don't have to come far if I want to remember you," and he acquiesced with a nod but essentially (and he and I both know this), yes, that, I guess, is exactly what I was doing. I should know better. The pictures I take when I am most apt to take them--in those two hours before dusk--never come out so good because the lighting is at odds with the blackness of their skin, and the results are lying representations of those warrior souls.
An SUV with Washington plates cruises by and I make eye contact with the occupants--only they aren't making it with me--and I am reminded of my recent reconsidering of an episode 13 or so years past in which I was in Texas (after a recent year and a half in Seattle) threatened by mail thusly--"what you did was wrong and I'm a get you for it," this with a Washington state postmark. What I did wrong was not fully evident at the time and now is no more so but getting "got" for something reminds me of this--just getting got, period.
I can't say he is a good friend because he's not but by reasoning that he is a better man than so many casual friends, and only 44 years old, and with that ability like Gatsby to see you as the man you want to be and reflecting that back to you before casually glancing off to attend to other business, it is with great sadness that I reflect on the news of his imminent death by cancer. I am jumping the gun accepting defeat so early but better now than later I say because the greater the early consideration the higher are the chances that what little useful courage I have will be used to convey my feelings to the living. "I'm going to miss you G, you are one of the few," and even your death will in the end uplift the living as we consider the unspoken message of your passing--are we accomplishing anything worthwhile? Is this what we want the final picture to look like? Is there something we should be doing that we are not doing? In your case G--with a beautiful wife and four daughters equally so, a booming business, and an undaunting pursuit of leisurely activities--the answers would be yes, yes, and no. And thank you for living as long as you will.