Unfinished pages

I’ve been writing stories for several years now—some decent, a few great, and others simply so-so. When I find myself stuck for new material, I often look back at what has worked before. Now that I am in my seventies, ahem, it seems only natural to write a bit about death. Hopefully, this will resonate with some of you. Some may scratch your head and call it drivel. And that’s ok.

I won’t try to convince you that death is a beginning rather than an ending; that is simply my own belief system, whether rooted in hope or genuine conviction, I’m not sure. The reality is that as we age, we lose people of varying closeness. They are with us today and gone tomorrow, perhaps to meet again in months, millennia, or never. We think we recognize them, but, who really knows. I have no intention of challenging your belief system. Just hinting at mine.

Society and religion often try to explain the unexplainable, suggesting paradise, damnation, or something in between. Perhaps it is a process of recycling to another time and place to try again. Those of us left behind look for hints to understand our loss, hoping for a future reunion where we can try to accomplish something together. Just as we might have in a former time. You recognize each other, even if you aren’t sure why.

I recently lost a very good friend. We both felt we shared a past and a future history. My friend was my friend many times over, and I choose to believe in that connection. We had opposite personalities; I am neither neat nor organized, while he was the epitome of both. He kept diaries from an early age, documenting his goals and accomplishments in neat, legible handwriting that showed a clear determination to improve and elevate the human condition. I was always in awe of him. But he was always just a regular guy.

I was invited by his family to say a few words at a service. My comments were strictly about this most recent incarnation—just the facts about a good person who accomplished much for our world. Afterward, his family brought me to his office. Among his papers was a series of diaries spanning many years. I asked for permission to borrow them for future study and to ensure he receives the recognition he so deserves. It is important to remember that just one small thing can resonate and reverberate countless times. For  better or not.

Diary number forty-seven stopped me in my tracks. It contained two and a half pages of important things to be done, followed by lots of empty pages. He was capable of completing those thoughts but ran out of time to finish them. These were ideas to improve our world that now sit unfinished. I cannot complete them myself; he was smarter and more well-versed than anyone I know. These ideas may now stall or be lost to the shredder of history.

It makes me think: we are all given diaries with a finite number of pages, and we cannot always time the length of our lives to match them. I have his completed books, yet I find myself fixated not on the pages of a life well-lived, but on the blank ones—the things he could have done. If that is my shortsightedness, so be it. I will simply try to be better.