All Things Must Pass

"It's not always going be be this gray." George Harrison, "All Things Must Pass" (1970).

A week ago we had to say good-bye to our dear 14 year-old dog Floyd. She was a great dog, a great companion and so intertwined in my everyday life. She hadn't been well for weeks and I found myself holding her especially close every chance I got. We managed a couple long-ish walks even as she struggled to keep her back legs moving forward. Each minute spent with her took on its own meaning and burned indelibly into my memory. But now, she is gone.

Since then I began to think about the last couple years of Floyd's life and, more broadly, about death and memory and life. This time last year, Floyd at 13 was still chasing tennis balls in the backyard and then panting in the grass. She would lay there, lapping some watering and ripping the cover off the ball. A dog's life. A happy moment. I can close my eyes and see her, pink collar shining in the sun, spitting pieces of tennis ball and every so often looking up and into my eyes. She was a retriever, obsessively so.

And then May 2009 (last year) came, and Floyd chased her last ball. She had arthritis and she just decided the pain of running outweighed the pleasure of chasing a ball. Oddly, she never even picked up a ball again. Once she was done, she was done. But, she wasn't gone. Not by a long shot. She was still a vibrant member of our family for another ten months. Always there. Begging at the table. Sleeping in the sun. Sleeping near the piano in the morning and then, inexplicably, heading upstairs at mid- to late morning to sleep some more.

Thinking about Floyd as I drove into work today, listening to George Harrison, got me thinking that we all die a little bit every day. At the end, we do, of course, really die, but what ends is the ability to make new memories. With kids, you see this almost daily as they grow. With my middle son (now 9 and a half), I used to joke on his birthday that 3 year old or 5 year old Sammy was leaving and that 4 or 6 year old Sammy was coming. Sammy got into the fun at some point and would pretend to receive phone calls from the incoming Sammy as if he were a different person.

The thing is, the new Sammy, the post-fetching Floyd, or my best friend Paul (who died last September 5) are all different from who they were. The memories of the prior time, be they in mind, photo or some other recording are all that remains of those prior moments.

So that's just it -- we all die a little bit every single day. When I look at a picture of myself from 30 years ago, I can remember the moment, but the moment is frozen in time and, for all practical purposes, the me in the photo died that day or some time soon thereafter. We carry the memories with us, but how is a memory of, for instance, my tenth birthday party, or my first two wheeled bike ride as a 5 year old any different from my memory of my grandfather who died when I was 8 years old? It is, but it's really not. All those people are gone. Only the memories remain.

A couple more stories and then I will try to make my bigger point, the point George Harrison eloquently made in 1970.

Last September (2009), I flew to New York for the day to say good-bye to my best friend, Paul. He valiantly fought cancer for four years and the end was clearly imminent. We sat together in his bedroom. He was upright in a recliner, pained, but clear voiced and we did what we had done so many times before -- we laughed about the early memories that formed our friendship. As we sat, and he talked a bit about being ready (maybe that's the wrong word) to die, I asked him if I could tell him the story of the day/night my father died. That memory is vivid, even today, and I wanted to share it with him. He squeezed my hand and said it was OK to tell the story.

I rambled through the details of a day spent with a high fever, chills and doctor visits (all mine), followed by an extended, annoying pharmacy visit. The capper to that day was finally crawling into bed, wearing sweats, a hat, gloves and thick socks after jamming pills down my throat and then, just as I settled into bed, my wife came running with the phone to tell me my mom was calling and pretty sure my dad had died. Paul quieted me a bit with a wave -- I get so animated when I tell that story -- and then I caught myself. I looked in his eyes and my telling the story became part of the mosaic, a part of the memory, of the last time I saw Paul.

When my father died in January 2008, I gave a eulogy in which I talked about the last time I saw him. (http://thingsfogel.blogspot.com/2008/01/sam-fogel-1926-2008.html). The memory of that day, directly from the eulogy:

"The last time I saw my dad was about a month ago. My 7 year old son Sammy and I came in and spent a very busy day with my dad. We went out to lunch; we tried a new coffee place and later went out for dinner, a movie and ice cream. He was so upbeat that day and was having so much fun. The whole time I kept looking back and forth between my dad and my son and I just felt that it would turn out to be what it was – the last time I saw him."

If I can, I want to try now to get to the point of all this with a question: how is a memory of my father's death, my beloved dog dying or a record George Harrison recorded in 1970 any different from a snow storm last week, a friend who moved across country, or the best meal I ever ate, or the chef who prepared it? Temporally, these are all memories, snapshots of moments in time that came and are now gone. As I see it, we all die a little bit every day. As George sang, "the sunrise doesn't last all day."

All things must pass.