My Turf

Last Saturday, I went to a wake.

He was the son of the producer of a TV show I used to write for.

He was stabbed.

Twice in the chest. Once in the abdomen. Twice at the back.

It happened on Valentine’s Day–a day when everywhere else in the world, people were celebrating and gushing over and toasting to the wonders of eternal romance and passionate love expressed in countless forms.

He was 30. And he just brought home his date (it was a blind date). Now we will never know how that date turned out. Did he like her, did she like him? It wouldn’t matter now, would it? 

He went for a nightcap. He was already billing out. Then the two men. Then the stabbing. Then his reassuring call to the panicking, worrying mother. Then the arrival of the policemen and the rush to the hospital. Then the operating room. Then the heart failure cause by the stab wound. Then death.

Death and dying: stories of which, whether expected or sudden, are always heartrending. With every death tale, we are simultaneously, equally reminded of the great power we possess as well as the magnitude of our powerlessness.

It really is a mystery why, despite knowing full well that life is short, we still choose to tarry and wait and put off and delay. Death is a certainty, inevitability, an eventual reality. Yet in the hustle of the daily grind, apologies are shrugged off, loved ones taken for granted, appreciation allowed to take a backseat, dreams forgotten…

Why is “right now” never the “right time?”

Why is later, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year better than “right now?”

When my chest hurts, when my head spins and I feel short of breath, when I cross a busy highway, thoughts of life and death momentarily swirl in my head.

What if I die today? What if this day is the day?

What then?