LOVE MEANS SORRY TO SAY YOU’RE DEAD

Poster by Elisson, inspired by Robert Indiana’s iconic 1996 LOVE graphic.

Erich Segal, author of the popular novel Love Story, died Sunday at the age of 72 from complications of Parkinson’s disease.

The 1970 novel that made him famous was a weepie about Oliver and Jenny, two college students who fall in love and marry... shortly after which Jenny suffers a tragically melodramatic death from cancer. A huge bestseller, the book was made into an even more popular movie starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw... all of which provides added proof to support the contention that the 1970’s sucked, big time.

The character of Oliver was, according to Segal, a composite of two Harvard students he knew: Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones. Which would, conceivably, make him a block of wood with a bad complexion.

The bullshit catchphrase “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” may be laid at the feet of Segal. Bullshit? Hell, yes: Anyone who has ever been in a loving relationship of long duration knows that being able to say you’re sorry (and meaning it!) is the mark of a mature, serious relationship.

Segal was a professor at Yale writing about Harvard students, which may partially explain his ridiculous perspective on romantic love. A Princeton man would have known better.

Requiescat in pace, Professor Segal. Love means being sorry to say you’re dead.

I’M DEAD, DAMMIT

Art Clokey and Gumby, his famous creation.

From Meryl Yourish comes the sad news: Art Clokey, creator of Gumby, is dead, having passed away in his sleep yesterday.

The beloved Gumby, along with his boon companion Pokey the horse, was brought to life through “Claymation,” Clokey’s version of stop-motion animation. Gumby’s lopsided head was inspired by Clokey’s father’s hairstyle, a hairstyle he knew only through photographs - for his father had been killed in a car wreck when Clokey was only eight years old.

A little-known fact: Gumby was modeled not only on Clokey’s father, but on the Golem of Prague, who was also created from clay and subsequently animated. The original name for the character, “Golemby,” was nixed in favor of “Gumby” by the Wrigley company, one of the sponsors of the Howdy Doody Show.

Clokey’s clay creations have always been popular, but in the 1980’s, Eddie Murphy’s unforgettable characterization of Gumby on SNL brought the Green Gumster to the attention of a whole new audience. Murphy’s Gumby was an ill-tempered old Jewish guy - “I’m Gumby, dammit!” - and the skits in which he appeared were pants-pissingly funny.

With Gumby and Pokey, and with his other creations Davey and Goliath (characters in an eponymous show with a Christian theme), Art Clokey made his living bringing clay to life. Alas, now he is naught but lifeless clay.

Ave atque vale, Art Clokey!

PIE GUY DIES

Soupy Sales, 1926-2009. Requiescat in pie-face.

Milton Supman, better known to the public as Soupy Sales, died yesterday at the age of 83.

Soupy Sales was the past master of pie-in-the-face comedy. I remember with fondness his afternoon show on WNEW-TV in New York, a show that ran for two years while I was of middle-school age. The show was funny, all right... but it was only as an adult that I began to appreciate just how funny. Sales was an improvisational genius who could combine puns, arcane references, and plain old slapstick to create Works o’ Comedic Genius on a daily basis... all this on a children’s show with a minuscule budget. To say that you could never do it today is beyond obvious.

A small private memorial service is planned, during which mourners will be encouraged to pelt the casket with pies. Dirt pies.

Ah, Soupy... we’ll miss you. The world needs its funnymen these days more than ever, and now we’re one short. Ave atque vale.

GHOST

Patrick Swayze, 1952-2009.

Patrick Swayze, having fought the Good Fight against pancreatic cancer for over a year and a half, is now working as a bouncer at the Great Big Roadhouse in the Sky. He succumbed to the disease yesterday.

The actor who famously played a ghost in the aptly-titled Ghost now can experience ghostliness firsthand. Alas.

Swayze was a native of Houston and was an accomplished horseman well before he became a dancer and actor. Back in the mid-1990’s, when we were living there and the Mistress of Sarcasm was beginning her Horse-Riding Career, there was always the possibility that he would attend some of the local horse shows. We never did see him, though.

I recall seeing him in The Outsiders, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film adaptation of the S. E. Hinton novel, a film that launched several acting careers. But, surprisingly, I have never seen Dirty Dancing, his 1987 breakout film. Even more surprising, I learned of his death by reading a Twitter post from someone in the Philippines. Technology is full of surprises.

Patrick, ave atque vale. We’ll miss you... but whenever we hear the peal of thunder from above, we’ll know that it’s you, beating wayward angels with a pool cue at that Roadhouse in the World to Come.

PENALTY STROKE

It was last Thursday evening that I was regaling SWMBO with yet another hoary old joke. This one had to do with the golf buddies who made a pact with each other, that the first one to die would try to communicate with the other in order to tell him whether there was golf in Heaven. Sure enough, Charlie drops dead one day... and then, a week or two later, a grieving Mike hears a disembodied voice speaking to him in the dead of night.

“Charlie, is that you?”

“Sure is! And, Mike, I got good news and bad news...”

“What’s the good news?”

“There is golf in Heaven!” And it’s wonderful! Better than Pebble, better than Pinehurst #2... and I finally straightened out that miserable slice!"

“Well, what’s the bad news, then?”

“You and I have a tee-off time at 9:45 next Sunday morning.”

* * * * *
As I was standing in line at the check-in counter at Reagan National midday Friday, I got an e-mail that informed me that Josh K., one of our Minyan Regulars, had died earlier that morning. I was flabbergasted. Why, Josh had led Minyan services only yesterday! It had been the day before his father’s yahrzeit - the anniversary of his passing - and Josh had wanted to recite Eil Malei Rachamim in his memory, but would not be in synagogue Friday owing to his morning Tee Time. And so he took care of business a day early.

Josh was one of the Respected Elders of our synagogue. Since the passing of Gravel-Voice Larry three years ago, it was Josh that led the dukhening ritual on Yom Kippur, the part of the service in which the congregation’s Kohanim - descendants of the ancient High Priests - stand at the front of the sanctuary and pronounce the Priestly Blessing. During our annual World Wide Wrap program, Josh would instruct the Hebrew school children in the art of donning tefillin, little leather boxes containing words of Scripture (“And you shall bind them as a sign upon your arm, and they shall be frontlets between your eyes...”) And he was one of our Gabbaim, the people who assist during the Torah service by calling up those with honors, helping correct any mistakes in the reading, reciting the blessing for the sick, and announcing page numbers. In fact, on Thursday I had asked Josh to take over my Gabbai duties Saturday morning as I would be out of town, and he had readily agreed.

We had a little joke between us. During services, when someone leads part of the service or otherwise performs a role in the ritual, it’s traditional to say “yasher koakh,” a (somewhat mispronounced) expression that means “may your strength be increased.” (It sounds so much more Jewish than “Good show, old chap.”) But I would always say “Joshy koakh” when Josh was the recipient of my attaboy. OK, it’s silly, but I’m all about the silly. And Josh could appreciate the silly. He always had some sort of comment or observation to share, invariably thought-provoking and generally funny to boot.

Even at the remove of several days, I have a hard time believing Josh is gone. There is a peculiar feeling associated with having seen and spoken with someone the very eve of his passing. It’s both hair-raising (there but for the grace of God go I) and saddening - because one never gets a chance to say goodbye. And Josh, being a Minyan regular, was someone I would see almost every day of the week.

Josh had only recently returned from a trip to Israel, where he was able to visit his father’s grave... and he died on the golf course, playing the game he loved. I suppose there are worse things than to have the Unexpected Visitor appear in the guise of the Golf Ranger, bearing a scythe in lieu of a three-iron.

And I have a vision of the Eternal, standing at his great Reading Table in the Sky, where He reads Torah on Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and the various Yomim Tovim... and standing on each side, making sure the reading is letter-perfect and that the pages are announced properly, are Gravel-Voice Larry and Josh.

CAMELOT IN TWILIGHT

Senator Edward “Teddy” Kennedy, the last of the Brothers of Camelot, has died at the age of 77 after his year-plus-long bout with brain cancer.

The youngest of the four sons of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., Ted was the only one to survive past the 1960’s. Like his elder brothers, he had Presidential dreams... but any hope he may have had of succeeding to his brother John’s place in the White House was drowned in the cold waters off Chappaquiddick forty years ago last month.

Despite the ensuing scandal, he became an effective senator, beloved by his constituents and able to work both sides of the aisle. His latest - and, as yet, uncompleted - mission was to reform this country’s health care system. But Kennedy, a co-sponsor of the clusterfuck known as No Child Left Behind, had had previous experience in drafting well-intentioned but completely botched-up legislation. I’m scared to death thinking what kind of health-care reform bill may still get shoved down our throats, especially now that its passage will be seen as a memorial to Teddy.

But I didn’t write this post to badmouth the man. Plenty of other folks will be all too happy to take him to task for his excessive drinking, his philandering, his unwillingness to face the consequences of his actions.

Oops.

No, I wanted to write this as an excuse to link to the one real Teddy Kennedy story I have... about the day I sat in Teddy’s Senate seat. Literally.

Teddy, ave atque vale. No need to pack your woolens - I suspect you won’t need ’em.

Oops.

THE BREAKFAST FUNERAL CLUB

John Hughes, 1950-2009.

John Hughes, Hollywood writer, director and producer of some of the most popular comedies of the 1980’s and ’90’s, died yesterday of a heart attack at the age of 59.

Meryl Yourish has written a fine tribute here. As Meryl notes, Hughes created his own genre of Teen Movies, in the process launching the careers of a veritable army of actors, including Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, John Cusack, Anthony Michael Hall, and Bill Paxton.

If I had to pick my favorite John Hughes movie, it’d likely be Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, in which Matthew Broderick frequently broke the fourth wall and spoke directly to the movie audience. But others like The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, and Planes, Trains & Automobiles are still fun to watch. While Home Alone, his greatest commercial success, is much more formulaic, it still has its moments.

In Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Steve Martin’s profanity-laced rant at the rental car counter (and Edie McClurg’s response) will elicit a rueful laugh from anyone who ever had to travel for a living.

Light a candle for the late, lamented Mr. Hughes. In fact, light sixteen of ’em.

END OF AN ERA

Walter Cronkite (1916-2009), veteran newsman.

With today’s passing of Walter Cronkite, veteran reporter, a final nail has been driven into the coffin of the twentieth century. Cronkite, 92, was at one point considered “the most trusted man in America” thanks to a felicitous combination of professionalism and an avuncular demeanor.

Cronkite’s career took him from a brief stint in newspaper reporting to radio, from which he made the jump to television in 1950. He cut his teeth covering political conventions and hosted the program You Are There, which used a news reporting format to recreate historical events. Beginning in 1957, he hosted an narrated The Twentieth Century, a program that documented key events of (you guessed it) the twentieth century using newsreel footage. It was on that show that I first heard his unforgettable voice.

It was “Uncle Walter” who brought the major events of my formative years to the small screen. The Cuban Missile Crisis (I was ten years old and scared shitless); the assassination of President Kennedy; the Apollo moon missions... all of these are indelibly engraved on my brainpan with a soundtrack provided by Walter Cronkite.

It is unfortunate that Cronkite did not live a few days longer. Monday evening will mark the fortieth anniversary of the first manned moon landing, perhaps the most significant technological achievement of the human species... and covered wire-to-wire by Cronkite, of course.

I cannot name a single contemporary television reporter who can hold a candle to him. Alas, the Infotainment Biznis being what it is these days, I fear that I shall never see his like again.

Requiescat in pace, Uncle Walter. We’ll miss you... and that’s the way it is.

YOU MAY ALREADY BE A WIENER:A 100-WORD ELEGY

Oscar Mayer, whose grandfather helped found his namesake company, has gone to the Great Sausage Grinder in the Sky. He was ninety-five.

Oscar Mayer (the company) stood out from its competitors partly because of its catchy jingles... and the Wienermobile.

At Mayer’s request, the Wienermobile will not make an appearance at his sendoff: Unlike his father and grandfather before him, he wished to avoid the funerary spectacle of a car shaped like a giant Meat-Dick.

Me, if my bologna had a first name and a last name that matched mine, I’d want that Wienermobile at my funeral. As the hearse.

THE KING (OF POP) IS DEAD

News flash: Michael Jackson has died at the age of 50, reportedly of a heart attack.

Holy fuckamoley.

More to follow. I have not yet decided whether to include my usual array of tasteless jokes.

A FAREWELL TO FARRAH

Farrah Fawcett, one of the original Charlie’s Angels, is in the process of getting acquainted with real angels, having passed away this morning at the all-too-early age of 62 after a lengthy struggle with cancer.

Men of a certain age will remember, with a sort of wistful nostalgia, the iconic image of Ms. Fawcett shown above. It was a hot-selling poster Back In The Day, the mid-1970’s answer to Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, and the immortal Brigitte Bardot. The red one-piece swimsuit - not overly revealing - encourages the viewer to use the imagination, and the pose showcases Fawcett’s slender shape impressively. But the “sizzle” all comes from that Texas-sized cascade of hair and that big, bright smile. (OK, the perky nips don’t hurt.)

Unlike Monroe and Mansfield, Farrah Fawcett survived past her mid-thirties, long enough for the blush of youth to have worn off her. As she matured physically, so did her acting ability, garnering her a nominations for six Golden Globes and three Emmys.

For many of us, Farrah Fawcett will be forever young, that poster-girl image having been seared into our minds at an impressionable age. But it is a sad reality that youth doesn’t last... and neither does life. It’s a sobering matter to think about, and today’s events force us to confront it.

Brigitte Bardot is still walking the planet, though. She turns 75 this year. Où sont les sex-kittens d’antan?

WE’RE NUMBER TWO

They sat hunched over the dark mahogany table, each with an empty glass in his hand. Robin poured out the single malt, giving everyone a liberal tot.

Ed Norton cocked an eyebrow and grinned. “You sure it’s OK for Tonto to be drinking this stuff?”

“Fuck you, Ed,” retorted the weathered Native American. “I can hold my firewater, thank you very much. Right, Bernardo?”

Bernardo, silent as always, simply shrugged his shoulders.

Dr. Watson spoke up. “I’d like to propose a toast...

“...to the latest member of the Immortal Sidekicks and Second Bananas League: Ed McMahon.”

They all rose, holding their glasses. “Hear, hear!”

“We’re Number Two!” Their voices seemed loud in that small room, almost loud enough to be heard on the Chicago streets below.

“I just weesh ‘Number Two’ didn’t also mean ‘shit,’” said Sancho Panza to himself.

* * * * *
Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson’s inseparable TeeVee Companion, passed away early today at the age of 86. Ave atque vale, Ed – we hardly knew ye.

R.I.P. MICKEY MOUSE:A 100-WORD OBITUARY

Well, not Mickey Mouse precisely... but Wayne Allwine, who voiced Mickey beginning in 1983, inheriting the Mickey Mantle (as it were) from Jimmy MacDonald, who had himself inherited it from Walt Disney.

Allwine passed away May 18 from complications of diabetes - and from repeatedly having his nutsack squeezed in a vise in order to propel his voice into those upper octaves.

Requiescat in pace, good Mr. Allwine. You leave an enviable legacy: Your squeaky voice will live on for centuries after you, embedded in late 20th-century American culture like unto a fly in amber. It is no small honor.

[Tip o’ th’ Elisson fedora to Cartoon Brew for the background.]

THE BUS TO FOREVER

Helen walked down the aisle, headed toward the rear of the bus. She wasn’t sure how she got there - all she knew was that she felt better than she had in years. And she knew she had better find a seat.

There. There, on the left side of the aisle, next to that striking white-haired lady.

She sat down and arranged her robe. Where had that robe come from? It felt like silk on the outside, but the lining was like the softest terry.

The woman sitting next to her - damn, but she looked familiar! - turned to her and said, “I’m Bernice. And you are...”

“Helen.”

“Nice to meet you, Helen. Welcome to the bus.”

“Thanks. Nice to meet you too. Now, where the hell are we going?”

Bernice grinned. “Ooooh, salty! A real firecracker - I should’ve known, with that strawberry-blonde hair. I think I like you already. How old were you?”

Comprehension slowly dawned in Helen’s eyes. “I am... was... eighty-eight.”

“You got me beat. I would’ve been eighty-seven next month. Ahhh, well.”

“So, let me ask you again. Where the hell are we going? Oy. Maybe I should rephrase that.”

“This is the express to Olam ha-Ba. The Next World, the World to Come. Whetever the hell that means. Err, maybe I should rephrase that.”

“Bernice, you look familiar.” Helen regarded her seatmate with a cocked eyebrow. “Have I seen you somewhere?”

“I suppose it’s possible. I used to be an actress. Bea Arthur was my stage name. Ever watch ‘The Golden Girls’?”

“Ah HAH! I knew it! I loved that show. Except I had four sisters, and I could never understand how all you women could live together in one house like that without killing one another.”

Bernice smiled. “It was television.”

*********

SWMBO’s great-aunt Helen and actress Bea Arthur (née Bernice Frankel) both passed away Saturday, April 25, 2009. Barukh Dayan Emet: blessèd be the True Judge.

Exalted, compassionate God, grant perfect peace in Your sheltering Presence, among the holy and the pure, to the souls of Helen and Bernice. May their memory endure, inspiring truth and loyalty in our lives. May their souls thus be bound up in the bond of life. May they rest in peace. And let us say: Amen.

THE (ETERNAL) REST OF THE STORY

Paul Harvey, 1918-2009. R.I.P.

Iconic radio broadcaster Paul Harvey has died at the age of 90.

Those who were waiting for him to finish his last “The Rest of the Story” segment are gonna be waiting for a looooong fucking time.

FAREWELL TO THE RABBI

In the fullness of time, I have said farewell to a number of people: friends, relatives, and even the marginal acquaintance. It’s a painful responsibility that falls upon we who survive. (And, just between you and me, I’d prefer to be among them that are saying the farewells than among them that are at the receiving end of same.)

But last night, I attended a shiva minyan for someone I hadn’t seen in many years. At least thirty, and probably closer to forty.

Rabbi Leon Spielman, who passed away last week, was the rabbi who presided over my Bar Mitzvah. He had been living with his son’s family here in Atlanta for the past year, but somehow our paths never managed to cross. It’s doubtful he would have remembered me, a snotty Bar Mitzvah trainee who subsequently dropped out of Hebrew school.

Back in the day, Rabbi Spielman was an imposing figure. Portly, with dark hair and a prominent moustache, he would wear black robes with a tall, black, Old-School-style toque while conducting Shabbat services. I, along with most of my youthful confrères, was just a little afraid of him: He was not the sort to brook any nonsense, nor was he “palsy-walsy” with his young charges. He was... The Rabbi.

Our synagogue sat right on the line dividing Nassau and Suffolk counties, on the Suffolk side of the line. That placed it firmly in Amityville. Yes, that Amityville. Big deal.

One of the synagogue regulars - a chief-cook-and-bottle-washer kind of guy - was a sign painter who called his business Kal Signfeld Signs, an appropriate (and intentional) misspelling of his own name, Kal Seinfeld. Yes, that Seinfeld. He had a kid in the Hebrew school who was one year behind me. Jerry, his name was.

Jerry was not a big fan of Hebrew school. But then again, none of us was at the time.

Rabbi Spielman’s son, in one of those strange twists of Jewish geography and fate, attended my very own Alma Mater, albeit five years later than I. And even stranger, he ended up in the same congregation with us here in the Atlanta metro area. Who’da thunk it?

I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to see the Rabbi before he passed on to Olam ha-Ba - the Next World. But perhaps it’s just as well. The shock upon finding out that I am now a regular daily minyan attendee who can function as a Chazan (cantor) for Yom Kippur services might have hastened his unfortunate demise.

And when I see the son, I remember the father... for the younger Spielman bears an astonishing likeness to the way his late Dad looked 45 years ago. Uncanny, that.

REQUIESCAT, RICARDO:A 100-WORD EULOGY

Ricardo Montalbán, 1920-2009. R.I.P.

Ricardo Montalbán has passed away at the age of 88.

Star Trek fans, who only recently mourned the loss of Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, remember Montalbán’s scenery-chewing performances as Khan Noonien Singh. But that was just a small part of an acting career spanning seven decades, a career that included roles in both film and television.

Montalbán was unafraid to parody himself, taking parts in movies like The Naked Gun. His star turn as Armando Guitierrez in “Freakazoid!” was especially tasty. I will miss him.

Funeral arrangements include a private service followed by interment in a casket lined with rich Corinthian leather.

AVE ATQUE VALE, PAUL NEWMAN

Paul Newman, legendary actor, race-car driver, and philanthropist, has passed away at the age of 83.

Newman was a rara avis in Hollywood circles, an actor who had a marriage (his second) that lasted half a century. His curriculum vitae was packed with enough accomplishments for two lifetimes.

Born to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother (a practicing Christian Scientist), Newman described himself as Jewish: more of a challenge, he would say. He must have enjoyed challenging himself. How else to explain someone who raced cars competitively into his eighties?

He and wife Joanne Woodward were long-time residents of Westport, Connecticut. Back in the 1988-90 timeframe when the Missus and I lived in Trumbull, we would occasionally shop at Stew Leonard’s in Norwalk. Newman and Woodward were frequently spotted there doing their grocery shopping (Newman was a serious cooking aficionado), but, alas, we never saw them.

He created his line of “Newman’s Own” food products (with friend A. E. Hotchner) and donated the after-tax profits to charity. The total is now somewhere north of $250 million. I always enjoyed reading the labels; they evidenced a sense of humor that was just a little off-kilter.

His epitaph could very well read “Paul Newman: Mensch.”

Alas, those beautiful blue eyes are now closed forever. To the new leader of the “Hole in the Ground Gang,” Godspeed.

BANE, R.I.P.

The pit bull of the Bloggy-Sphere, Bane, has passed away after a long illness.

Other bloggers - Rob Smith comes to mind - may have been irascible, but Bane could be downright scary. You got the feeling that there was sudden violence lurking just under the surface of the Baneskin.

Love and seething fury. All of us have both, but most of us try not to acknowledge the delicate balance - the dynamic tension - that sometimes exists between the two. But Bane was proud of it. He thrived on it. And it fueled some remarkable writing.

He spawned at least one unlikely blogdaughter - unlikelier still is the fact that she is a schoolmate of mine. Another Minor Mystery o’ Life.

Ave atque vale, Bane. You will be missed.

SABBATH REST...ETERNAL

I picked up the shovel and drove its blade, upside-down, into the mound of red earth. I swung the blade, with its small payload of Georgia clay, over the grave. The sound of the dirt thudding on the casket lid was the sound of finality.

One of the small kindnesses we can do for those who have passed on to the World to Come is to tuck them in for their Forever Sleep. It is the last favor we can do for a beloved parent...a friend...or God forbid, a child. It is the penultimate act at a Jewish funeral, followed only by the washing of hands.

Only three months ago I had stood beside Marc at his grandson’s brith milah, the ritual circumcision that marks the entry of a male baby into the Covenant. His house was full of family and friends celebrating a happy occasion, and Marc, as usual, had a smile on his face.

Marc always had a smile on his face. Not the smile of the Happy Idiot, but the smile of a person who makes a comfortable living, has a loving home, has married off his children, and who is now beginning to reap a bumper crop of grandchildren. It’s a smile of appreciation and thankfulness from a man blessed with abilities, good luck, and a serene spirit.

There were times I could have envied Marc, were I capable of feeling envy. He was a regular attendee at our annual Men’s Club regional retreats, and in recent years he was accompanied by his son Scott, his son-in-law Ben, and Ben’s brothers Mark and Josh. The Manly Intergenerational Bonding that would take place on those retreat weekends was something that I, a daddy of daughters, could only enjoy from afar.



Marc (r) with son Scott, 2005.

This weekend we received the shocking news that Marc had died unexpectedly.

Saturday morning, he had decided to take a nap (a favorite Shabbat tradition) while his wife Mindy went out to run a few errands. When she tried calling him from her cell phone, no answer. She came home to find him still in bed, so she left him alone for a while...but after a few hours, when she tried to rouse him, she was horrified to realize that he was no longer merely napping. A massive heart attack had carried him off in his sleep.

I’ve heard all sorts of rabbinic and philosophical explanations as to why it is that God sees fit to call someone home before his or her time...as if we know what an untimely death is. Fact is, until the advent of modern medicine, people were done in by all kinds of diseases and accidents at all ages. But these days, with some justification, we feel cheated if a lifespan is cut short before, say, age 80.

She Who Must Be Obeyed lost her sister Polly at age 16. I lost my mother at age 60. Marc only made it to 52. In all of these cases, we, the survivors, feel an especially keen sense of loss because we know so many people who keep walking the planet into their 80’s and 90’s. And when we try to invoke our fragmentary, limited understanding of a Higher Power in order to explain it all, we may or may not be satisfied with what we hear...for at the end of the day, we know that we’re all going to end up in the same place. It’s just a question of timing.

A respected rabbi once told us that to die in one’s sleep was God’s kiss, reserved for people who merited a special place in the World to Come. For Marc, that kiss meant an infinitely prolonged Sabbath Rest. It was a kiss that came all too soon, for reasons we will never know, for reasons we are not given to understand. And we, the living, can do nothing but shed our tears, rend our clothing, and then get on with the business of life, having been reminded that the Unexpected Visitor awaits every one of us.

Barukh Dayan Emet. Blessèd is the True Judge.