Dollar Short and a Day Late
Dodgers are playing tonight. Mood in the hood is buzzing with blue. Choppers hoover overhead and fans spill onto the streets, their hoots and hollers sound the hound alarm and Miss Daisy’s howling adds to the festive spirit. Today is April Fools’ Day, a personal favorite of mine. I like the idea of celebrating foolery and it also happens to be the birthday of a dearly departed pal, Ms. Irma McInnis. So in honor of her early demise from pancreatic Cancer at age 46, and all the other constant reminders that life’s too short, I’m not going to stress over dirty dishes and laundry or failure to post my March blog. Dollar short and a day late is the way I roll in terms of my writing career. Anyway, the idea of this space is to be a place to reflect on writing Death-Defying Nina, and following that, my recovery from the act. If I miss my own deadline, I’ll still have a job. These days self-promotion takes a backseat to self-care.
Reliving Nina’s battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease I experienced loss and grief and feelings of hopelessness all over again. After navigating that emotional terrain, I needed a break from dialoging about tragic events. Not easy. Sunny streets of LA are full of dark stories.
Couple of weeks after I finished DDN I took on a project helping high school students with their college admission essays. Hundreds of teens with a dream: sharp young folks, tackling gang violence, poverty, addiction, abuse, and neglect. Each student had a hard luck tale to tell and each personal statement contained the message—education is the key to a brighter future. I didn’t dare remind them there are plenty of unemployed and depressed PhD’s. But they’re smart; they’ll figure it out. And as I read through those pages filled with heartache and struggle, I was reminded that I’m not alone. Wandering the halls of schools and offices are fellow survivors. Hard not to meet a soul who hasn’t suffered loss or faced some sort of hardship. This is one reason why I try to smile at glum faces, why I’m patient with drivers who space out when the light turns green. Millions and billions of people that populate the planet are preoccupied by concerns greater than themselves and beyond their control. For many, death is a blessing.
Those of us offered a respite from the vicissitudes of life are obliged to get on with it. It’s easy to get sucked into sorrow and be mournful for our lost loved ones, yet a steady diet of melancholia can impede us from moving forward.
My guy V shook his head “why?” when I prodded him to get his stacks of personal papers in order. A lifetime of ephemera--military handbooks, legal documents, musical scores, photos from his travels as an AP photographer—is heaped in piles in the garage. “I’ll just toss them,” he said nonchalant.
My gut instinct was to jump in and argue for the sake of sentiment. Weren’t these mementos valuable? How could he throw away his history? But then I had a second thought. He’s right. If a record of V’s past, wild as it was, is saved or chucked in the recycling bin no one will give a hoot. He doesn’t have any children to pass this stuff onto and since his crap is in my way right now, I’ll side with him. Ultimately, V’s attitude about The End is pragmatic. He figures it only happens once, so why think twice about it. What’s the point of looking back when all you have left is the future.