The recent news regarding Woody’s mom and Karen’s dad has put me in a reflective mood. Thinking about what they are all going through right now and what is in the cards for the days, weeks, months and years to come. The road ahead for them is bound to be bumpy and unpredictable regardless of day-to-day medical improvements and spiritual reliefs. That’s simply where all lives are headed sooner or later. Our life stories have beginnings, middles and ends and the ends are always the most difficult to endure and comprehend. Everything it seems is just a matter of time, and how we perceive that time seems to be the key to how we deal with it and understand it. I previously mentioned that I will consider myself lucky if at the end of my time I should have my children around me like Karen and Woody are there for his mom and her dad. Maybe that’s because I wasn’t there for my dad (and couldn’t be under the circumstances which are too complicated to get into here) and wasn’t really there for my mom who was 3000 miles away but thankfully had the daily benefits and blessings bestowed upon her by my sister Debby’s dedicated and undivided care and attention. Or maybe it’s just that mortality is in and of itself a disturbing and distressing issue for me. Denial is a powerful mechanism and it has served me well over the years insofar as I can only imagine the pain I might have felt had I not been able to put certain things out of sight and out of mind. But denial is also the enemy of experience and growth and resolution, so I’m ever mindful of what is lost in the process of avoiding the reality of suffering and sadness. So I guess what I’m saying is that what Woody and Karen are going through is serving as a lesson to me in many ways. They are setting an example for a way of engaging in and coping with a situation that not all of us are equipped to handle with such strength and grace. I’ve learned much from them and others like them (like my sister Debby and her husband Bill, my wife Ellen and many others in her family) who I consider strong in ways that I am not…and yet aspire to be.

This “Intimations of mortality” mood of mine also has me thinking about how and why we three couples embarked on this house sharing trip together. It’s not just about sand and sea and the pleasures of country living and relaxation. It’s also about the importance of social connectedness. It’s about how in our contemplation of the years ahead we want to be with and around others to share in the inevitable pains and precious pleasures that only become more precious with the passing of time. It’s about how you come to realize that it's not what you have in common with others that matters most, but having others with whom you can be yourself and enjoy their pleasure in doing likewise. Woody loves Sondheim and I’m allergic to him. Marty has ideas about human psychology that make me wonder what planet I’m living on, Karen loves things so neat and tidy and organized that I feel like Oscar Madison in her presence, Renee thinks I’m a snob when everyone knows I’m an inclusive and vulgar populist, and Ellen mostly agrees with the four of them regarding all the above. But we don’t love our friends because they’re just like us, it’s our differences that provide the attraction (providing that the differences aren’t too great to drive you apart—and you cultivate an open mind and heart while protecting your privacy). I don’t love my wife despite her faults, I love her because of them. Cause they’re not my faults (and if she did have my faults, she wouldn’t be my wife) and I can only hope she feels the same.

Anyway…I’m rambling here and didn’t intend to wander off like this, guess the only point I really wanted to make is that I’m happy to have the friends and family I have and happy to be able to argue with them and put down their taste in music and literature, and tell them they don’t know the right way to cut a pineapple, and that the way they laugh, drive, sneeze, and answer the phone bothers me and that their preference for chicken breasts over legs and thighs is incomprehensible, and that $30 entrees that come without a side dish is highway robbery, and that having a pool when a placid sea is just 100 yards away is the pinnacle of indulgent hedonism…and knowing that they feel likewise makes me confident that we’ll continue enjoying ourselves this way till our stories end. And that’s why I’m happy we’re building this house together.

Hope Woody’s mom and Karen’s Dad will be there to join us.