Gone So Long and Gone and Going On

I started this as a post for social medial, but it didn't quite seem right for that. Maybe it's a prose poem. Maybe it's just a few thoughts at the end of a week, an OK week except for contemplations. 

But then those matter don't they? They affect well being. 

Talking about them is supposed to do some good. 

 I’ve been gone from where I used to live a long time, almost a quarter of a century. A moment in a book I was reading reminded me the other day I ought to try again to find out what happened to this one girl I used to know. We knew each other as kids and in high school, rubbed each other the wrong way frequently, but co-existed well all in all. 

Funny the little things that trigger memory. The book had an incident about a swimming pool, and she and I were in the same circles that went swimming when we were 10 or so.

I had learned when her mother died that she had preceded her in death sometime before the internet documented obituaries as well as they do now, except maybe behind paywalls. 

I thought a fresh Google might let find out what happened to her. I didn't get an answer. But that led to the discovery of another person who passed, then another and another. 

That on the heels of learning a while back of a friend 30 years gone I just hadn’t heard about.

I need to stop looking and counting. 

One girl, I couldn't tell you the last time I saw or talked to her, but her passing made me sad and made me keep reading Legacy. 

One in the mix was a guy I hadn’t thought of in years and years and years, but when I saw his obit I remembered this one time a friend and I went with him and flew this plane he built—long, long before drones.

A piece fell off while his remote-control plane was in the air. He managed to land it without destroying it in spite of the fact that it was an aileron he lost, a piece pretty important to control. 

We joked about insurance. As he loaded the damaged plane into the back of his car, he said: “Yeah, I need `a piece of the rock' for my plane, too.” It was a spin on a slogan for Prudential many might not recall. 

As I read of his passing, I learned he turned that passion for building into a successful small business and made that how he spent his time until… 

Made me look more at one of the others. She was a parallel friend, someone from the schoolyard you'd say hey to or chat with if you crossed paths back then. You can look at some timelines now and get reminded in small ways they did the same things you did back when with a different set of friends. 

And she went on to a career and other things until circumstances, and possibly some bad decisions, kicked in. 

Trying to find out more, I learned of another friend who preceded his mother in death. That's all her obit said.

It's made me think of fond moments with each of those seven gone that I've learned of in the last few years.

Apparently origins and specifics of the quote are disputed, but I'll go with the variation attributed to German poet Ludwig Jacobowski that I found. It seems to fit best:

“Do not cry because they are past! Smile, because they once were!” 

 Maybe so. I'll remember that and go on trying to create new moments. 

 Zevon nailed it. "Enjoy every sandwich." 

And a paraphrase from that first quote above is sometimes mixed with a passage from Dr. Seuss, I'll keep in mind too. 

 “We’re off to great places, so let’s be on our way.”