One Brief Something Moment

Yesterday, I came upon a funeral procession along the back streets of the old neighborhood. The hearse with the deceased therein led the way of this final pass through the avenues that—once upon a time—constituted home sweet home. For some years, I found this post-funeral mass—pre-burial—tradition sort of on the morbid side, but I now appreciate all that it says about life and, of course, death. Really, you are here one day and gone the next. You live a life that abruptly comes to an end—a life of relative consequence, but one that will largely be forgotten as time passes. Time, by the way, that won’t include you.

When I was growing up, there was this woman who lived up the block. Her name was Bea, but we not surprisingly called her “Aunt Bee.” Well, when all was said and done, Aunt Bee was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She was a fighter, though, who desperately wanted to remain among the living for one reason and one reason only: to witness the verdict of the O.J. Simpson trial. You see, Aunt Bee was so wrapped up in the proceedings that it killed her to think that she might not be around for the denouement. Sadly, she didn’t outlast the trial. A more conventional one presided over by a less star-struck judge might have secured this dying person’s wish. But it just wasn’t to be for Aunt Bee.

“To Bee or not to Bee” said a lot—to me anyway. For Aunt Bee breathed her last while the O.J. Simpson affair meandered on and on and on. She experienced her one brief something moment of existence and it came up—in the end—a little too short. As a youth, I never entertained the notion that I wouldn’t be around at some point. Now, I do. In fact, I think about life after me often. How so much of what I’ve accumulated through the years—ephemera, in particular, that has meaning to me but few others—will be tossed away with little or no fanfare.

Recently, I observed a couple of sudden ends—on the outside looking in, as it were. I watched their relatives throw out the preponderance of evidence that they once lived. And I didn’t find fault with them. What else can be done? Now, if their dead relations were in league with George Washington or even Laura Ingalls Wilder, I might have had a problem with Operation Clean House, but they weren’t.

So, something for me to ponder in the post-Aunt Bee world: If I knew for certain that the grim reaper would pay a call on me tomorrow, how would I feel? What would I do? I can honestly say that the last thing on my mind would be a desperate will to live to see the conclusion of the Donald Trump impeachment trial in the senate! Getting such dire news would not have me pining to know if old Bernie is going to outdistance old Joe. Funny, but I could actually live without knowing, die without knowing, and be content—and, I believe, have something of a smile on my lifeless face during my last road trip and when, too, my accumulated lifetime of stuff is shredded and trashed. Yes, when my one brief something moment has come and gone.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)