The Comets of Memorial Day
Meditations on Death II
It comes like flashes. Comets across the sky.
“Try a Little Tenderness” comes on, and I remember singing karaoke with him.
I pass his old apartment and remember stinking it up after a sweaty day of ultimate.
I have a sudden urge to do something juvenile and ridiculous, and he is the first person I want to call.
It’s been seven months since Paul died. In some ways it feels like ages ago, and then like a flash, it doesn’t feel real.
This weekend is Memorial Day.
A day to honor and pay tribute to those who have passed. For years, this meant flowers on the gravestones of generations who built my family, community and the world I enjoy today. Now it has a different meaning.
It is less celebratory. Less thankfulness for sacrifice. Less purposeful.
Instead, it’s a reminder of stupidity.
How could someone with so much yet to give be taken away? Why do I want to remember that?
Silver linings abound.
Typically an optimist, I thought I would be the one finding those silver linings for everyone.
Sure, I’ve spent more time with good friends due to his passing. I’ve kept in touch with people I probably would have drifted away from. I think more about my own mortality and am more mindful and present with that in my mind.
But these silver linings? I could have gotten them from a book or greeting card:
Keep in touch with your friends.
Be thankful for what you have.
Love life.
This litany of postcard mantras isn’t why Paul passed.
There isn’t a reason he passed. I can make the best of his passing, but he didn’t have to leave for me to become a better person.
So what to do with this day of memory?
This year, at least, it’s a fucking comet shower.
I want every memory to pass over me like a waterfall, knocking me on my ass, leaving me bruised, teary-eyed and hurt.
It is too easy, (or maybe necessary?), to go back to routine. The predictablity of our day-to-day lives save us from the hurt and pain of constant comets.
So one day a year, this Memorial Day, I’m opening up the wounds and grabbing the salt. I know I will always have flashes of him that cut the routine.
For one day a year, however, I can look up, eyes peeled, and watch for him shooting across the sky.
WHOOSH!