A Sudden Death

A house fire recently killed A.R., my brother’s college roommate, his oldest remaining friend.  I’d met him many times, beginning with my brother’s wedding in 1961, continuing with the marriages of my brother’s children, and ending with the party that my brother and his wife gave last June to celebrate their 50^th wedding anniversary.  That last time, A.R. and I spoke as we always did.  And as always I found him to be a likeable, sensible guy and easy to talk to – requisites, I guess, for the successful practice of his profession, psychiatry. 

For my brother, who spoke to him just a few days before he died, A. R.’s loss is a major blow.  Friendships are precious.  Each is its own world.  When that friendship dies, a world dies with it.  I was sad, of course, to hear of A.R.’s death, and I was concerned for my brother, but I also regretted not having made more of an effort to explore the landscape of A.R.’s life during that anniversary celebration. There would always be another time, I thought, if I thought about it at all. 

A. R. was my brother’s age, four years younger than I, so I never thought of him as an old man, although of course at 76 he was.  I didn't wonder, as I said goodbye to him last June, if this would be the last time I would see him, as I did with my uncle and my father during their last years, as I still do for friends who are a lot older than I am. 

We’re advised to be grateful to see the sun rise, and in general I am.  But what A. R.’s death has driven home to me is that we should also be grateful that the sun rises for members of our family and friends, even the youngest among them.  A school mate of my nephew, a young man, just died from a heart attack.  His sudden death could no more have been predicted than A.R.’s death in a fire.  My interest in predicting my own longevity, outlined in the past few posts, blinded me to the longevity of others.

But it’s obvious we cannot frame each conversation with someone who is close to us as if it will never see one another again.  If we acted that way, our friends and family would hide behind the curtains when they saw us coming up the steps.  But we can at least be aware that the time will come when we cannot say anything more to the persons we love. That’s an incentive to say it now.  “I love you” would be a good place to start.

2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved