“I see dead people …”
No, not really, although Haley Joel Osment did attend mass at the same church I did when I lived in Southern California and my daughter actually taught his Sunday school class.
But I do seem to be losing people at a faster rate, and I have reached a point in my life when not all of those people are older than I am.
I was actually looking at the Memories page on Facebook at a post from four or five years ago and I saw dueling comments from two of my friends. Both were younger than I am and both have since died, at least one of them unexpectedly.
I saw just today a post that a younger fraternity brother of mine had died. It was sad, but I don’t think I knew him at all. What I did realize is that as one of the founding brothers of our chapter nearly 35 years ago, I am almost certainly the oldest living brother on our chapter roll.
All my grandparents are dead, of course. Two of them died before I was even born and another died 53 years ago.
I hate to have to say it this way, but I’m pretty sure all my parents are dead. My dad died in 2008 and my mother died 17 months ago. The only one I’m not sure about is my birth father, who disappeared in 1952 and was never heard from again. He would be 95 later this year if he is alive, but it’s doubtful.
At 72, I am the oldest person in my family, although I have in-laws in France who are older. That’s the result of my wife, who is three months younger than me, being the youngest child in her family while I was the oldest.
Of my long-term friends, I have one who is a year older than me. The others are all younger. Two younger friends I have known — and loved — for more than 40 years have both battled cancer and won. Both of them are active enough that I don’t have to worry that they’re still alive.
That isn’t the case with all my friends. I have one who is a few years older than me — she was my government teacher in 12th grade — who I follow through Facebook. I realized recently that it had been months since she had posted anything, so I was concerned. I heard through another friend that she was OK, and I was very pleased to see some posts she did in the last day or two.
With the sad exception of a cousin who died young more than 40 years ago and my sister’s husband who died of cancer, everyone in my generation of my family is still alive. We’re all past 60, and if I say I hope I go first, it has nothing to do with a death wish. It would just be ignoble of me to wish someone else would go first.
I really have been blessed. One of my closest friends lost his wife four years ago …
Why can’t he find her?
This is what I get for using euphemisms.
It’s also what you get for having a split personality.
Nearly everyone who matters to me who should still be alive is still alive. Some of them are people I have lost touch with, and perhaps I can try to make connections with them again.
There are four different states in which I lived at least 10 years, and it’s problematic to think I’ll ever return to two of them. I haven’t been to Ohio since 1990, when I attended a funeral, and I haven’t been to California since we moved away in 2010.
Of course the picture at the beginning was from 1985, from an earlier funeral and more than half a lifetime ago for me. I am the oldest person in that picture still drawing breath. Since it was before I met Nicole (in 1992), the people I love most in the world aren’t in it.
In fact, my daughter Pauline was just turning 5 that summer and my son Virgile was about six months old. They were still in France then.
It’s truly amazing how well some people age. The young woman front right in the picture is my youngest cousin Ruth, who was an attractive young woman then. Now she’s a Facebook friend who has grown into a truly lovely woman who I think is seven or eight years younger than I am.
I hope everyone in that picture who’s still alive lives many more years.
I don’t need to see any more dead people.