The nature of mortality

October 12, 2014

 

I have been looking at my life all wrong. When I get up in the morning, I look in the mirror and see some old geezer. I have no idea where he came from except that he is in my house with my wife, and our collection of memories all around. When I look out through my eyes, or my memory, I see myself as 25, or thirty, going full tilt, making plans for the next seventy, or so years. When I awaken from my delusion, I see that all that water has passed under the bridge and it is 2014, my father would be 107 and my mother 97 if they were still earthlings so I must be in my seventies. Wow! What a ride we have had. The rest of my mortality is nothing less than a gift of time so that I can get a few things right before I have to face God.

 

I watch with keen intensity as my mind takes me back to various scenarios in which one, or more people in my past have been in the “done me wrong” category. In one incidence I recall my brother Glenn coming home on the bus with a note of reprimand from someone, or other. No, that’s not correct. Actually he got home only to be followed to door by a very irate person who claimed he did such and such. I don’t remember what it was or why the person was so upset. The person, a woman I believe, gave mother a gigantic tongue lashing and I having absolutely no knowledge of the situation found it necessary to step up to the door and protect mother and deny any and all of her assertions. Of course this did nothing to solve the problem, made mother embarrassed, and angry with me for interfering. Looking back it felt like the right thing to do.

 

Another time I was at the bus stop on 12^th north heading to Madison School for seventh grade. Several of us were waiting at the bus stop, when this service truck jumped right out in front of me with a large oil can sitting in plain sight. I had a great desire to make sure everything worked so in my attention to duty I went over to it and smacked the handle real hard. The handle went down and the oil squirted way up in the air. I thought my job of ensuring it operability had been successful. As soon as we got to school we those of us who had been at the bus stop were called into the hall next to the principal’s office where we were grilled and inspected for a few minutes; then, all but me were sent back to their classrooms. It seems like in ensuring the oil can worked properly the oil from that squirt had landed squarely on a young ladies blouse; she had gone home called her mother and the sinful truth came out in spades.

 

The truth would be much more manageable if those were the only incidences in my life in which my judgment had been less than accurate. In fact as I put on my memory glasses and look back I see literally thousands of times when what I  perceived to have happened, compared to how it was perceived by others my mind blurs and becomes murky and I really don’t want to even acknowledge that was me in the making.

 

My job as a father, husband, elder statesman, curmudgeon, and restless seasoned citizen is to “school my feelings” and share what I can of my experience in assisting the next generation and the next in avoiding some of the foolish errors in thinking and doing in my life. One of the significant things I wish to work on in the next few years is assisting our family in having some written memories and current associations with one another. As a first start in this venture I have attached a note I wrote to my cousins on my mother’s side to provide some idea of what the heck I am talking about.

 

 mis primos

 

I have visited with Eugenia, Glenn, Lydia, Orlando, Clara Jo, Marie, and siblings of Lynda over the past few months and one thing is certain - the ageing and completion of our earthly mission. Edwina, Valentine, Roger, Billy, Lynda, to my knowledge have gone home to that God who gave us life. The rest of us are well into our later life and many in not the best of health. So, this is a cheery little note that makes me feel like we may be able to show respect and love to our parents and grandparents by taking a small leaf from their book. Over their lifetimes of diverse, difficult, and dramatic lives they were bonded with a love eternal.

 

My proposal is very simple. If those of you who receive this note with its interesting attachments would be so kind as to pass it on to those whose email addresses I do not know, or who we will need to correspond via snail mail; then, share from time to time with your children and grandchildren, we would be able to form a very, very loose, but living family tree. When Clara Jo visited as mother was passing, and then recently called she was, in essence saying her good byes. This just might be a way of providing an avenue for our decedents to have a knothole view into the lives of others who share their same marvelous history and genealogy. I have attached a note from one of Clara Jo's children, Jamie, which should stir some interest in other descendants and some great writing (both the handwriting and the prose) from Uncle Eleseo.

 

So, I am going to send a very short note every month with the hope that most, or all of you will join in and we can continue the marvelous blessing our parents gave us.

 

Thank you for being my friends and my family. God bless you as you serve others.

 

Duane Jacobs, grandfather, father, brother, uncle, cousin, and friend