You Died on a Tuesday
The title of this post went around in my head for a long while. Maybe I put my beloved dog, Brenda, down on a Tuesday a decade ago, but I don’t remember anymore. Never-the-less, and without other explanation, I kept repeating it in my head for some reason, for longer than makes sense. Then on Tuesday, July 18th, my father, an actor and playwright turned screenwriter, passed away in his hometown of Rochester, New York. And the oft-thought-about line makes sense now.
The greatest modern line about grief that I’ve ever heard was written by a screenwriter whose name I don’t know and said by the Marvel superhero, Vision: “What is grief if not love persevering?” Writers have a unique way of entering culture, via typed text on a page or lines recited by actors like Paul Bettany. We don’t usually hear them recite their own work, though. I could quote DeNiro movies all day, and still be shamefully forced to admit that I don’t know who wrote many of them. Unfair though it may seem to not get the recognition, it’s kinda cool: to be present in popular consciousness while being able to stroll down Hollywood Boulevard or the floor at Comic Con unrecognized, to be the brains and heart behind the beautiful faces on the silver screen.
I’ll add my two cents to the concept of grief, of love enduring. It is analogous to the ocean’s swell. It’s strongest and most chaotic after a tempest, and over time the sets become further spaced apart and the waves smaller, until eventually it’s replaced by calm - the magic moment floating on a board surrounded by liquid glass. (Obviously, this is not ideal if you plan on actually catching waves, but it can be pretty serene to experience. Also check the surf report, man. It’s online now. You don’t have to call and listen to an answering machine. Damn kids and their conveniences!)
The most important thing to know about the ocean’s swell is that you cannot fight it. (Safety note: this is true both figuratively and literally.) It will win every time if you try. In order to avoid getting tossed “over the falls” in the vernacular of those who shred the gnar as it were, you have to go over, under or through the waves. And grief is the same. You simply need to let it pass over you and eventually its emotional power dissipates leaving love in its wake. There’s no avoiding it, especially in the long run.
I’m writing this on a plane back to California from Rochester – my third trip there in the last two months. The old man’s cottage is empty, accounts are closed, remaining bills paid, car is sold, New York DMV placated, a whole bunch of other banal minutiae taken care of, and now I can check off the memorial - that he said he didn’t want but I know he’d be thrilled about anyway - as completed successfully. (Of note: those ROC folks can run up a friggin’ bar tab. Impressive.) The final ashes-spreading task will be completed next year when the lake in Cooperstown is thawed, and his (mine too!) beloved sport of baseball has arrived or is coming soon. Hopefully, it isn’t windy, Lebowski.
You died on a Tuesday, Pop, but I’m still here. And I’d tell you this was the biggest storm of the year, but you’d know that wasn’t true. The sets of incoming swells are fewer and fewer. I hear your comforting voice answer me when I talk to you in my head. I hear you sing when I do. And as many know about me, I have no problem playing in the waves anyhow. It’s one of the things I love the most.
Rest easy, old man.
