Jimmy Carter. Peter Yarrow. A former colleague at Microsoft.
And of course millions whom I don’t know, every day.
But that’s sort of the point.
When we’re young, younger anyway, we hear about people dying, but mostly it’s as indirect as those millions I just mentioned. Yes, rarely – I hope rarely – it will be a parent or a cousin, a neighbor’s mom, a friend’s dad. But those little bombs arrive maybe once every few years.
# # #
In the last few weeks, my wife and I have had too many of the “so-and-so just died” conversations. A little bomb every few days, not every few years.
And I realize that as I age, as my friends and colleagues get older, the bombing frequency will not be decreasing. If anything, these stop-time moments will come “not single spies but in battalions,” as Shakespeare wrote. With each, we hear the name and the obit spools out inside our minds. Jimmy Carter wielding a hammer at ninety. Peter Yarrow insisting for the thousandth time that “Puff the Magic Dragon” was not about weed. Mike Maples – that’s the Microsoft guy – going for a United Way fund-raising swim with Steve Ballmer in an ice-cube-filled pond.
The worst part, maybe, is this: The obit notices will increase in frequency, until they one day… stop.
We won’t get to hear the final one.
# # #
I hope people can find a good thing or two to remember me by.
But not yet.
Not yet.