"A Collage of My Life"

This morning, after I woke up at around 3:00 AM, I sipped my coffee and tried to build a mental collage, a photo-montage if you will, of my life. I envisioned a huge white canvas and as I recalled mental images starting as early as probably 4 or 5 years old, the canvas began to reflect my life for the last 60 some years.


I started at the bottom of my framed composition and began with images of playing in the back yard with my friends, sleeping in a canvas tent during a warm summer evening. And, playing whiffle ball in the street and having to stop every few minutes as cars passed by. Watching as the yellow electric buses stopped by our house for the drivers to take a short rest. All of these images began appearing as symbols of my years on earth.


The canvas grew rapidly as a remembrance from each year and would be fixed permanently to my life portrait. High school friendships, college exploits, service to my country, marriages, children, grandchildren, all there for me to examine.

The early years were met with bright colors, sunshine, silent laughter. An occasional pastel would shade the brightness which I suspect indicated maybe a death, or an illness. Certainly nothing that
left a major bruise in my life.


As the portrait filled with my memories I felt myself concentrating harder and harder to keep focus, something that I have had to live with all my life, and even now with my mental thoughts, I asked myself if it was lack of focus or my resistance to a frightening past or an unsure future. I decided to simply fast forward and investigate whatever was causing this anxiety.

And then I had a shortness of breath when I saw what was causing my fear.


The canvas was almost complete. Only a small portion of it left for what I had hoped would be many years and memories to come.

Couldn't I just lengthen or enlarge the space giving me all the time I wanted? No, it was like elastic. and as I stretched the white background it pulled back harder only to show me then that this is it. This is all there will be.

I stepped back and took it all in. I saw a wonderful life. I saw happiness. I saw some sadness. I saw some anger. One thing I knew was that I lived life pretty much to the max.. I laughed and played and won most of my battles. I saw also that I had lost some battles as well, even a slight memory of when I thought I had died. Perhaps I had and was simply given that second chance.


Along the way I saw I had made mistakes. I broke promises. I ruined relationships. And for a time I spiraled downward.

I still have a little room on my canvas though.

Maybe I spent too much of my early youth painting with too big of strokes and that consumed too much of my canvas. Or maybe the memories just consumed me and all of those hours were truly wasted on a lost youth.. I don't know.

I plan on mixing my colors brighter on the palette though. I want to finish the portrait with brilliance. I want it to shine from the top down. Perhaps illuminating some of those darker periods.


What is important now is to leave the anger that has recently arisen. The hate that has dulled my mental picture. I want my life collage to reflect light, not darkness. I want the last parts of my collage to shine. It is not a cliche' when people say life is too short, it is just a fact.

Someday you will see my life's collage. Some of you will recognize those periods in time. Some of you will say, "I knew him when..."


All of this is not an expression of depression. It is a commitment to make sure my final images, my final acts, will shine the brightest. Life is to be lived fully until the last bit of the canvas is complete

How you doin'....

We ate lunch at one of our favorite restaurants yesterday. It's nearby, it's a little hidden, it's a little nondescript, it has excellent food and it's Italian....I mean REALLY Italian. It has Frank Sinatra songs playing in the background....it has authentic Italian dishes. And, you almost get a feeling you could see Tony Soprano sitting at one of the tables.

We usually try to get seated in our favorite waitress's station but we saw she was working on what appeared to be a large catering order. And since we were one of the first in the restaurant for lunch we opted to just be served by whoever had that particular area.

Seating us and who would also serve us was someone we have seen numerous times and whom we thought was one of the owners since he always greets diners, sometimes seating them, sometimes, serving water and just always keeping  an eye on the overall operations. That suspicion was sort of confirmed when he once gave us a complimentary dessert when he saw us eyeballing a piece of strawberry cake at a nearby table.

He is truly old school. Black slacks, white long sleeve shirt and that wonderful New York Italian neighborhood expression..."How you doin'..."

Shortly after placing the menus on the table, which Pattye thought were new luncheon menus, he returned to take our order.  I asked, "Are the menus new?"....he replied, "I dunno I just got here.". I laughed a little nervous chuckle just because partly due to his accent and slightly nervous because I didn't want to offend him.

Then I took it one step further. Since I can never go anywhere without engaging someone in conversation, I asked the elderly gentleman, "Are you originally Italian?"  As the question rolled out of my nervous mouth, I realized I meant to say, Are you originally from Italy?"...he kinda looked at me like I was a little stupid and said, "What, do I look Chinese?"...Again, that slightly little nervous chuckle from me.

Pattye ordered a bowl of the potato soup, which is beyond words, and I ordered the excellent chicken Parmesan. Often we just split a meal partly because the plates are huge and we eat a little less these days...Our waiter's comment to us..."What...is this a two for one. I can't make any money like this." and he walked away....and again, my nervous chuckle.

After we finished most of our meal, we asked for to-go boxes and a piece of that great strawberry cake..He looked at me, kinda smiling, yet somewhat stern..."No", he said, "You finish your meal here.. Eat it here". and then he walked away. In a few minutes, he brought the boxes and as I said "we'll do that".meaning, we would put what we wanted into the boxes....he proceeded to put the food in the boxes himself. And then surprisingly he declared, "You need more juice", referring to the broth from Pattye's soup, which I thought was a nice gesture. And off he went to enhance the take home dishes.

This is not the man's first rodeo.He brought back the change from two $20.00 bills that Pattye had given him (she always treats) and it was obvious he left the $.30 in coins behind...not a big deal...and actually something that one might appreciate since you don't have to carry it around anymore and its value is much less. Pattye gave a generous tip since the food, service and overall experience was great even though I wasn't ever sure of where I stood with the wonderful man, he certainly was entertaining.

And of course, as we were leaving, another man, whom we have also thought to be one of the owners, said as we left and he put out his hand and said..."How you doin'"

I love those Italian mannerisms, and even though my smile was a nervous smile, I think he was very sincere, so I replied in a similar manner, "How, you doin?". He smiled....thankfully.

"And when I die..."

Well, this morning when I woke up singing, it wasn't any different than most mornings when I start singing first thing, except today's song seemed a little ominous.

It's funny how we often create our own lyrics, either because we forgot the original words or maybe we never even learned them in the first place. I remember a thousand years ago, when my friend, PJ Shank's, mother, whom we affectionately called "Link" used to sing "One Ton Tomatoes" instead of "Guantanamera" for the words to the song by the same name "Guantanamera".


I laugh often when I watch people on the Ellen show make up there own lyrics as the camera pans across the audience during pre-show warmups.


But today, it was a little somber. A little dark. And at first it sounded a little hopeless as the words came out of my mouth.


I was singing a classic by "Blood, Sweat and Tears", their great hit "And when I Die". It has a fun melody, kinda upbeat, but boy...when I Googled the complete lyrics, since I couldn't remember the entire song and just kept repeating the one line of the refrain "I'm not scared of dying". It dawned on me. I am scared of dying.


But you know what, just like the next verse says "if it's peace you find in dying then let dying time be near."...it's all a matter of interpretation.

Another line in the song says "I can swear there ain't no heaven, but I pray there ain't no hell"....I guess I have to disagree with that as well. If there isn't any heaven, well, then, score one for the Big Guy for leading us down a hopeless path. There has to be something on the other side. I'm not ready to find out yet, and I am scared to find out, but I have faith..

I'm guessing a lot of this is that at my age, many of my friends are becoming ill and having to fight battles they never expected they would encounter. But I, like you, am here to help them. 

So, as the song says...

And when I die and when I'm dead, dead and gone,
there'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.


Now is not the time to give up hope, all of us have a lot of livin' to do.

Anyway, welcome to my world...It's crazy, but it's exciting.