Obituaries and Long Goodbyes

My Dearest Irv,

I'll try to avoid those tiresome clichés, but to be frank, my mind is so flooded with the grief of your loss that I don't know how much of my goodbye will be original.

It seems unfair that it was your time to go. It doesn't seem right that you had to die.

Maybe life is like a candle, floating alone in a nightmarishly dark abyss. In youth, the candle burns strong, repelling the darkness that fights to consume it. With each passing year the candle grows shorter and the flame weakens. Finally, in old age, the candle flickers, and slowly burns out. Without the flame, we too are alone in this abyss.

If life is a candle, yours is one that refused to cave in to the darkness. Your flame fought until the very end, burning brightly and refusing to be snuffed out all at once. Your flame burned bright and true, even as the candle on which it burned degenerated slowly. Your flame burned with all courage and love it had showed in its youth, until the candle on which it relied could not longer sustain it. Only after your fire had fought long and hard to keep burning did it allow it to flicker and fade away.

Thousands of memories of you are etched in my mind, and in each one, there is always the subtle blaze of laughter hidden behind your gleaming eyes. My father said that if I were to take one lesson from your inspirational life, it would be to never let myself grow old, no matter how many years I lived to see. Throughout the course of your life, you never allowed the multitude of challenges you faced to bring you down. You remained young always, even though your birth certificate argued otherwise.

It's amazing the impact somebody can have on a person's life in 14 years. 14 years was all I had to know you, and that all together was much too short. I knew you for only a small fraction of your 84 years, and that fraction was enough to affect the course of my life. 14 years - the first 14 in my life, and the last 14 of yours. As one life ends, so one begins...the ending of your phenomenal life must herald the birth of a truly magnificent child. One could only pray that the child entering the world as you are leaving it is merely brushed by the wings of your soul as it departs. For that child would be truly blessed to have been touched by one who loved with his entire heart, cared deeply, laughed long and hard, and knew the true magnificence of the world around him.

I find it hard to talk about you as if you are really gone. I find myself hiding in my memories, pretending you are still here with us. I conceal myself in my fondest memories of you, all of which are full of the love, compassion, and humor you showed to everybody.

One of my favorite memories of you takes place in one of your (and my) favorite places -- Colorado. I was young then, hardly big enough to go to a restaurant and be expected to behave. My mother warned me to keep on my best behavior, and to not sit on your lap, as that would be rude and improper. About halfway through the meal, you noticed my obvious discomfort as I fought to restrain myself from turning my silver wear into the ultimate drum set. You picked up your spoon, and, with an expert flair, hung it off the tip of your nose.

To this day, it is almost a tradition for me and my father to engage in spoon hanging competitions. Only lately have I been able to outdo him, achieving the all time family record by hanging 6 spoons off my face.

Daddy said you smiled when he told you that. He said it was the first time he had seen you smile since you had entered the hospital a couple months earlier. I never got to see you after that. I never really got a chance to say goodbye.

They said there were problems with your heart. They needed to perform a valve replacement and triple bypass surgery...which at your age could be almost more fatal than not doing the surgery at all.

As it turns out, it was fatal. As the doctors cut you open, to expose your loving heart to the cruel world, they had no idea that the complications would kill you several months later.

You passed away just last Sunday...Yet my heart can still not grasp that you are gone. Even when I read your obituary, it seemed more like some warped dream than the bitter reality it really is.

So this letter is a final goodbye to you. A farewell to the man who taught me how to hang a spoon off my face. A farewell to an expert pilot. A farewell to the man who loved the countryside, a farewell to the man who may have been one of the last cowboys left. A farewell to the man who loved with all his heart and cared deeply for everyone around him. A farewell to the man who acted like a grandfather to me after my own passed on.

Goodbye, my dearest Mr. Jones, you taught us all something valuable at one time or the other.

They're going to scatter your ashes in Colorado, over that tiny plot of land you loved to call your own. As the wind picks up what's left of a truly wonderful man, it will carry you to soar with the eagles above the canyon walls. It will carry you to run free with the wild horses whose hoof beats ring like thunder as they gallop across the arid desert. It will carry you through the aspens and the oaks and the pines, spinning you through their welcoming branches. It will carry you over the distance to the land where you were born. And finally, it will carry you to the hearts of all who loved you, reminding them that age is truly a number and life will embrace you as long as you live it to the fullest.

Well maybe life is like a candle, floating alone in a nightmarishly dark abyss. While your flame has finally flickered to its end, it has inspired those you left behind to shine on.

I love you forever Irv. God speed and rest in peace.