A Song for the Unremembered
July 2000
It's a conspiracy. Just as I emerge from over three weeks remembering
those who touched my heart and mind on Memorial Day, I've been
pushed, really pushed, into remembering people who aren't dead;
they're just "gone."
Last week, James,
the Hispanic cop on NYPD Blue, was promoted to sergeant. The squad
met after shift at the local hangout where his partner, Greg,
made a light-hearted speech about his great buddy -- always covering
his back, often his butt -- and now he'll be sergeant. "Don't
be too good to drop by, James," he said.
Shyly, James took
the microphone and returned compliments, joked to avoid tears,
saying finally: "We've gotta stay together; we've been through
a lot. I don't want to be like the good friends I had in high
school who we promised we'd stay in touch with and we never did.
Let's not do that."
They all shrugged
and nodded, I shrugged and nodded, the show ended, leaving me
alone in the darkened living room with images of nine other cheerleaders
who swore with me we'd be friends forever. I don't recall ever
seeing even one of them again.
In interviews
with the cast of M*A*S*H, we learned how close the actors became
over the 11-year run of the show. If we all felt close to them,
imagine how close they were to each other -- whether through love
or hate, jealousy or anger. They haven't seen each other in 20
years.
In this reflective
period, I was watching all the inside goings-on aboard The Love
Boat, where real storms at sea vied with the internal turmoil
of Julie, the young cruise director accused of not giving their
due to Lana Turner, Gloria de Haven, Greer Garson, Deborah Kerr
and other huge stars of the '40s and '50s who appear as guest
celebrities in weekly episodes.
"I never heard
of them. I was 20," she said, trying to defend herself against
those who say she's out of her league and that she dove into the
lost seas of cocaine.
Never heard of
Lana Turner?
It's one thing
to mourn someone who dies, but when someone is part of your life
and then is no longer, it's a surprise when they show up in your
mind. We would have heard if they were dead. And, occasionally
we did hear that someone we just asked about died a few years
ago. "Oh," we might say. There's really no appropriate way to
grieve years after the fact.
When we do remember,
images are of how we and those close, close friends were then.
I see Barbara and I sliding down a snowcovered hill on shiny new
saucer sleds our kids got for Christmas, a generation after the
Radio Flyers we grew up with. We laughed until we landed face-first
and open-mouthed in a snowbank. We were 41 feeling 11.
I think it's called
"losing touch." We could pick it all up again in a moment, but
not today. Maybe someday. Out lives have moved in different directions.
A phone call about what we're doing lately would not be a connection;
letters would offer even less.
These are friends
we made in a neighborhood and bonded with at the time. And, the
time was a time of our lives. We meant for it to last forever
the way it would have if we were really aunts and uncles to their
children -- filling in for the relatives they left behind because
of corporate transfers. Our children never knew their real aunts
and uncles but they loved these people who were in and out and
always around.
There are so many
out there, friends who saw us through joys and disappointments.
Some still have a book I loaned them; others I owe a dinner. Often
I said, "Oh, if it weren't for Mary..." or, "Joe really saved
my life, that time."
The reminiscing
was warm and good; now I vow to "get in touch," but one more thing
kept me locked into the past this month. Eleven-year old Maggie,
here for the Summer, started thumbing through both Jenning's and
Brokaw's millennium books on the coffee table.
"Oh, look, MeMe,"
she said, "the Titanic. It's just like the movie." Well, there
was at least one thing I hadn't lived through. Actually, I haven't
read the books. Over 50 years of those events are as fresh to
me as yesterday's news -- the pictures as sharp in my mind as
on the slick pages.
This was a moment
we'd remember so I looked over her shoulder as Maggie leafed though
the book. I was seeing page after page of what was already in
my mind's eye and she was looking at history. She knew the words
The Great Depression; now she fixed on the black-and-white images.
She looked at
things slowly and absorbed what she saw. I saw the same picture
and remembered who was with me the first time around.
I told her about
the baker who lived next door and how every night he'd bring by
a huge box full of sweet rolls, kaiser rolls, bread and breadsticks,
all too stale for the next day's business but more than fresh
enough for the many mouths around our table.
Maggie saw exactly
what The Great Depression was when she focused on real people.
I remembered the real people who got us though those tough years.
Yes, it's a conspiracy.
From all sides I'm driven to thinking of the people I've known
and how important they've been to my life. We get into the habit
of thinking we are who we are because of steps we've taken in
that direction.
Perhaps this is
another habit where a 12-step program would put things in perspective.
From what I understand, most such programs require that you go
to people you've hurt and apologize. In the one I propose for
the habit of thinking we're doing life on our own, we would have
to seek out the people who've been there through it all and thank
them for it.
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