Some years back, I was living in California and our granddaughter was visiting us for the first time.
She didn’t come alone. Madison, who now goes by Artemis, was just two months old. I mention this story because I had just seen in the paper that the oldest woman in America had died at the age of 115. I remember this for reasons I’ve written about before. She had been married only once, and her husband had died when she was just 39.
By 2008, she had outlived her own generation, her children’s generation and her grandchildren’s generation. She had plenty of living relatives, but the oldest of them were her great-grandchildren.
I looked at baby Maddie and I realized that if I were to live to be 115, this two-month-old infant would be the age I was at the present time. She would probably have grandchildren of her own.
The story of the Indiana woman reminded me of a saying I had heard once.
“If you live long enough, you will lose everyone you ever loved.”
At that point in my life I had lost only my grandparents, born in 1895, and my dad, born in 1926.
I’d had friendly acquaintances who had passed on for one reason or another, but the people who really mattered to me — family, friends, children, grandchildren — were mostly still around.
Not anymore.
Nicole and I will travel to Virginia next month to bury my mother, who died in November. A few years back, I lost a friend when my daughter’s first husband (Maddie’s dad) lost his mother, who was my age.
In 2016, one of my closest friends in the world died unexpectedly of a brain aneurysm. Tom had been my friend since 1965, and I made a round trip to Denver and back in 24 hours to attend his funeral.
And one year ago today I lost a good friend, even though I didn’t really know him well until I was past 60.
If you asked almost anyone what they thought of Brandt Heatherington, you would get some variation of “He’s a great guy.”
We were fraternity brothers in Sigma Phi Epsilon at George Mason University, although we didn’t overlap. My last semester was the spring of 1981 and his first was the following fall. We were both presidents of the chapter, and he was able to stay active after college because he remained in Northern Virginia.
I came for the 30th anniversary celebration of the chapter founding in 2010. I don’t recall meeting him there, and we actually became friends through Facebook in recent years.
We actually met in 2017, when I played in our chapter’s alumni golf tournament. I had gotten so I was pretty good — hey, I broke 80 — back around 2011 when I was playing a lot. But age and injuries had pretty well wiped out my game, and I didn’t know what to expect.
I won two prizes, one for oldest golfer (67) and the other for closest to the pin on one particular hole. So at least one of my prizes was for skill.
Brent and I hung out and talked some, and we got to know each other over the next two years through Facebook. His big project was the Read Across America day, when adults read books to school kids.
Many of the books were by Dr. Seuss, who was actually a fellow Sigma Phi Epsilon brother back before I was born.
A year ago today (I was 70, Brandt was in his late 50s), I went to Facebook and got a total shock.
“Brother Heatherington passed away today.”
Of course I thought of the old joke — Dead? I didn’t even know he was sick — you say when someone tells you George Washington is dead.
But I hadn’t known Brandt was sick. He was actually overweight, diabetic and had congestive heart failure. His death was a surprise, but maybe not that shocking to people who knew him better than I did.
I miss him, though. Rarely a day goes by that he doesn’t cross my mind, but I suppose as I get older, more and more of my thoughts will be of departed friends.
As long as it’s not family, I can probably handle it.
I need my siblings, my wife, my children and my grandchildren to outlive me. And my closest friends too.
Most of those losses would really be too tough to bear.
