No Do-overs

No Do-overs

“I shall pass this way but once; therefore, any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

-           Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dear future me,

Don’t settle.

Sincerely,

Present Self

John thought it was clever, short, and to the point, good advice for any young person about to leave high school and wade off into the great unknown. A positive message- dream, strive, and make the most of your talents. The simplicity reminded him of the classic answer to the legendary Philosophy Class question: “Why?” Answer: “Why not?” Miss Pischke didn’t see it that way and slapped a “D” on his paper. John figured she was looking for a little more detail on the assignment of a letter to his future self.

John would have put the odds of that high school “paper” surviving the next fifty years at absolute zero, but thanks to his marriage to a true sentimentalist, it did. It eventually falls upon the next generation to sort through the boxes of such things stored in an attic or a basement and perhaps place them back into the hands of the soon-to-be departed collector. Such “treasures” were in a box of papers and photographs his son brought to the hospital that night.

“Ben, you don’t have to come here every night.”

“The Brewers are out of it, and there’s nothing but reruns on TV, so I thought I’d stop by and kill a little time.”

“Right.”

“Dad, check out this stuff I came across in the attic.”

“Stuff”- all those things that at one time meant something to someone, gathering dust in an attic or mildew in a basement for years before making a final trip to the town dump. John was at that point in life where he questioned the significance of anything.

“I can’t believe Mom saved this stuff. I thought you might like looking through the pictures and papers.”

He did and he didn’t. Walks down memory lane are bittersweet when the end of the road is in sight. Time, the mortal enemy of all mankind, has the unique ability to turn happy into sad. What’s the point of remembering good times knowing they will never return?

“I’ll look through it tomorrow. Let’s just spend our time talking.”

Talking with his son. Doing anything with his son. All those times that he wasn’t interested, tired, or preoccupied with work. John wished he had them all back now. He’d talk until he dropped… oops, perhaps a poor choice of words considering the circumstances.

The grandkids, of course. Their soccer games, the upcoming basketball season, and of course, the obligatory inquiries into their schoolwork. They talked about Ben’s job, the new deck he and Sally put in, the huge bass Ben caught when he was twelve, and Ben's long fly ball that was foul by just a foot that would have won the game. Past, present… but no future.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Dad.”

Tears welled up in John’s eyes as Ben left. John wasn’t so sure. He thought about telling his son how much he loved him, and what a good son he had been, but he wanted to hang on to that thread of normalcy as long as possible. Better to remember life the way it was.

“Good morning, John. How are you feeling today?”

John learned long ago that they don’t teach everything in nursing school. He was dying. How do you think he felt? But now was not the time to educate.

“I’m ok, Doris.”

“I’ll open the drapes. You need a little light in here.”

Unspoken, but on John’s mind… or it looks like a tomb in here.

A cold, dreary, rainy September day, with beads of water trickling down the glass window in mesmerizing patterns. John thought it fitting that the mood outside matched the mood in the room. He liked lousy weather these days so he wouldn’t have to think about how he could have been out in a boat fishing with Ben or teeing it up with his buddies. His regular foursome was already down to three, and he wondered if the remaining two would continue the tradition.

It is an oddity of the human condition that the only certainty in life- death- is rarely discussed or considered. And then it comes knocking. Surprise. Now John couldn’t get it off his mind. There was no joy in the last six months. Every thought, every moment, was smothered by the sad realization his body was losing its battle to a cruel, heartless, relentless foe. We live, and it all ends in death. It smacked of a certain unfairness to John. He recalled the passage he once read aloud in Miss Pischke’s class, McBeth lamenting a poor player strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage. John had become that player, and he finally understood it was indeed a tale told by an idiot.

John dug deep inside, seeking the courage of Sydney Carton awaiting the gallows or Davey Crockett at the Alamo, but he couldn’t overcome the fear of dying and the sadness of leaving it all behind. He was only human.

The next morning John suffered through his soft diet breakfast. A digestive system gone awry doesn’t tolerate many of the foods normal people consume. John had grown into a large man, strong as an ox as they say, a big hitter on the golf course, and it was hard for him to accept the fact that now he could barely feed himself. Pride wasn’t fading as fast as he was.

John surveyed the room, the last place he would be on this earth. The flowers in the corner of the room did nothing to brighten the mood of his death chamber. With some difficulty, he could still make the trip to the bathroom. He never looked in the mirror as it only brought painful memories of the man he used to be.

He eyed the box on the chair at the side of his bed. He knew what memories lurked inside, but he reached for it anyway. Photo albums, painstakingly organized by his late wife, were on top.

He managed a smile looking at the kid with the disheveled hair and glasses, shorter even than most of the girls in the 4th Grade Class picture, and regrettably, with his eyes closed. Fortunately, a growth spurt soon followed, and after his glasses were broken during a game of touch football in the closed-off street at recess, his new optometrist determined he really didn’t need glasses. John never forgave his parents for being saddled unnecessarily with the name tag “four eyes” for two years, but today he could laugh about it.

He looked good in his Little League uniform, but unfortunately, John stunk at all elements of the game. He considered it a successful at-bat if he didn’t get hit by the pitch. He recalled his poor Dad doing his best to mask his frustration (“Good swing, son!) at their batting practice sessions at City Park, and the smiles kept on coming.

The look-back at his life stayed in positive territory as he viewed the snapshots of him navigating through his high school years… his football team picture, toilet papering yards, his first car, a light blue1957 Plymouth with the big fins that he and his buddies dubbed the “Batmobile”, and Prom. She was stunning, and he looked out of place stuffed into the suit his next-door neighbor had worn to Prom two years earlier. The best of times. It was all good.

 And then cruel fate intervened. That single sheet of worn, wrinkled paper flipped the mood, and knocked him back to the troublesome reality of his life. His heart sunk. It wasn’t the barely passing grade; it was the message he penned to himself so many years ago- “Don’t settle.” It was a stake driven through the heart of a dying man. John felt it. He knew it in the flick of a hummingbird’s wing. He had settled.

Dying is never a fun event, but reaching death’s door with the suspicion you never really lived is a real bummer. John knew he could have done more, should have done more.

He struggled with Peggy Lee’s doleful query, “Is That All There Is?”, ever since he received the diagnosis. What had he done with his life? What impact did he have on this world? Most people never want to answer the question. Neither did John, but he knew.

He was a smart kid. School came easy for him. First Grade through High School, John was near the top of his class without really trying. He likely could have gone to one of our more prestigious universities, but he averted the challenge and settled on a state college where he could better pursue all the fun activities the college years were rumored to offer.

He could have been a doctor, a scientist, or perhaps a political leader who could have made a difference in this world. Instead, he partied his brains out in college and settled for a degree in, of all things, Philosophy.

Armed only with a degree of marginal utility, John still had an opportunity to make full use of his talents and follow a dream. He had collaborated with a college friend to write stories, plays, and skits for the consumption of their peers. John declined his friend’s urging to accompany him to Hollywood to try to land a job as a comedy writer. His friend eventually became a contributor to several popular TV shows while John settled for a safe and secure position in his Uncle’s insurance agency where his mind went numb explaining the advantages of whole life insurance over term insurance and the benefit of higher deductibles on liability policies.

Thoughts travel at the speed of light. The events came at him like a flash of lightning, all bundled up as one great mass of regret, but each making its own mark on his weakening mind and body. And the worst was yet to come.

True love. John never found it. Marge was a great woman, a good wife and mother. It was a comfortable, tolerable life, but it wasn’t the stuff that stirred the heart every day. John had dreamed of Wesley and Buttercup; he got Ozzie and Harriet. In the most critical of human endeavors, he settled.

And he had been warned! “I told you so’s” are always tough to hear, but they are brutal when they come from yourself. He read the words over and over again. “Don’t settle”. He could have done so much more with his life. He did it all his way, but sadly, unlike Sinatra, he had plenty of regrets.

 John knew that even with his non-descript existence peddling insurance policies in his hometown, he should have done more. The empty pages flipped through his mind as he recalled all the things he didn’t do. He should have coached one of Ben’s sports teams; been a Boy Scouts troop leader; volunteered for any of his Church’s activities; been a Big Brother for some poor kid after Ben left for college; carried 2x4s for the Homes for Humanity guys; and on and on.

And the big ones. Maybe he could have left a legacy of laughter had he followed the dream of a writing career, if not at the Hollywood level at least penning entertaining articles for the local paper. He would have liked that, and he would have left something behind. It was sad to realize that if he had never existed, someone else would have written all those insurance policies, and everything would have been the same. John looked at the words, “Don’t settle”, and feared his net impact on this world was zero.

Out of deference to his departed wife, he felt guilty reflecting on the “true love” he felt he had missed out on. Maybe there was no such thing, that it was all contrived illusions perpetrated by those Hollywood guys, but he missed it. A want is a want, possible or not.

John fell back into the flock of pillows Doris kept rearranging on his bed. He had an uncomfortable feeling as his mind traveled through the choices he had made and the path of least resistance he had taken in life. He found some degree of solace in the realization that he helped make Ben, wonderful Ben. Maybe that was the true love the Maker had intended for all who would inhabit this earth. Maybe that was enough… maybe not.

Like most of us, John got more “do-overs” in life than he could count- another try on his bike in the competition for distance over a jump crudely constructed in their back alley; another swing at the ball when golfing with his Dad after his first shot found the lake; grabbing a second, third or even fourth chocolate out of the box and discarding the earlier bad choices; tossing another hoop over a coveted prize at the church fall festival; a second attempt to secure his driver’s license. So many do-overs in life. Life itself? Not so much.

John never got to the rest of the “stuff” in the box. He set the disturbing message from the past down and closed his eyes for the last time. Troubling thoughts of what might have been randomly crisscrossed through his failing mind, laced with visions of flowers popping up out of the ground in the spring, little bluebirds flying in the direction of a rainbow, and a baseball passing just left of the foul pole. If Doris had been on duty that night, she surely would have noticed the tear forming in the corner of John’s eye. It all finally dissolved into welcome sleep. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. That time thing again. Once it passes, it’s gone, never to return.

 Sorry, John, you don’t get a do-over.