Monday, June 19, 2017

On Choosing The Kind Of Day To Die

                                                                     

This may sound a bit maudlin but, given a choice of what kind of day I'd choose to die, it would have been yesterday...not because of Father's Day, but because of the sense of peace I enjoyed.

I awoke at my usual 5AM, put on the coffee, checked my email and Facebook postings, posted a comment or two of my own,  then went out and retrieved the Sunday paper.

So I sat down to read my paper, coffee mug close at hand, and just decided I'd skip over the Trump stuff, ignored the liberal editorials, and, instead just stuck to the sports, the Arts page, and the human interest stories.

And the pickings were golden.  Over on the Sports page my Diamondbacks were racking up more victories on the road, nose to butt, one game behind the Rockies and those dastardly Dodgers.  The U.S. Open was prominent, one of those sport-shirted young men having shot a historically low 63 in Saturdays round and the paper even featured a nice little spread about father-son athletes.

What brought the most joy on this morning were the human interest stories, the most delightful being a recount of two middle aged women who had been corresponding with each other for 37 years but had never met.  They finally did, over in Scottsdale on a fine, recent June morning and it seems that 37 years of correspondence had served well as the foundation for friendship that had the two ladies thick as thieves at first meeting.  It was superbly delightful to read how, as children, they had shared secrets, seemingly made safe in knowing that, in living so far apart, there was no risk of being judged.

After finishing up the morning paper, and making a second cup of coffee, I re-visited Facebook and found that my daughter, Crystal, had written such a lovely tribute to me, accompanied by an old pic, that I found myself reaching for the Kleenex.  

So, dear reader, as I sat there on Sunday morning, totally immersed with a sense of peace, and a sense of being loved, and owning a kinder, gentler sentiment regarding the state of the human race, I would have been more than happy to drift off to the afterlife.  Rest assured, I'm not advocating for an early demise, nor even "booking passage", but if I had my druthers my last day on Earth would be a day just like yesterday.

A belated Happy Father's Day to all those men who understand that fatherhood is far more than getting your name put on a birth certificate.


2 comments:

Jerry Carlin said...

Yes, Absolutely!!!!

A Modest Scribler said...

Happy Monday, Jerry. Have a great week.