As Luck Would Have It (40 page)

The stew smelled the same as I remembered it and it tasted good too. 
I opened a bottle of Cabernet and it was
e
very bit as fragrant and fruity as before,
exactly as I preferred a full bodied red to be.  I was grateful for the many aspects of my life that were unchanged
; I just had to figure out a way to m
anage what had.  Lucky for me, I had my friends there to help me along the way.  The phone rang just then, it was Joseph; shit he keeps throwing up.  The doctor said to just give him water until tomorrow and we'll see how he's doing.  I'll come by tomorrow then on my way to w
ork; I cooked something for you, I hope he can have some.  I called Michelle and she sounded worse; I think it's the flu, my fever is way up.  What bad luck, my friends sick and now I'd probably catch it too.  Just get some rest and don't do any more work; I'll call in the morning.
 
Then the phone rang again; I was surprised to hear Brent's voice on the other end.  His funeral is on Friday at 10:00; I just wanted to let you know. 
He mentioned the name of the funeral home,
which
I remembered was
right on MacArthur Boulevard
not very far from the office. 
Wait,
maybe I got that wrong, I better look up the address
on MapQuest
and see if the place even still
exists
.
  Thanks Brent; I appreciate the call, I
’ll
be there.

*****

I
t was nearly five years after the horror of the plane crash and its aftermath that left me very much a different person, both physically and emotionally.  Under any circumstance, such an event would be a life changing one without a doubt, but for me it had proven to be much more than that.  Nightmares, flashbacks, grief and lament were to be expected of course, but we've seen the surprising and unusual transformations that I had experienced and it was clear to me now that these we
r
e to be permanent
; there would be
no going back to the world I knew prior to December of 2020.

The process of adjusting to this new world, this second life of mine, had been painful in many
respects,
even if it
had been
gratifying in
others.
  I had to acknowledge, sometimes in near denial, that the unfortunate and distressing aspects of living could no longer be so easily avoided by me.  Now at the brink of old age, I was no different than anyone else that would be qualifying for Medicare in just a few months time.  It's not as if I believed I was immortal at any time in my life, far from it.  I knew that death lay before me at some point, but it never seemed imminent somehow, the funerals I attended never made me contemplate my own
;
where I might be buried, who would give the eulogy, how I would be remembered; those thoughts didn't occur to me back then.

But now they do.  My back hurts when I shovel the car out and my bones ache, perhaps from some old injur
y
I didn't even know I had.  The doctors tell me to cut down on the red meat, the salt, the Scotch, you name it.  You aren't smoking still, are you Clifford?  Nah, I
g
ave that up five years ago.  Good, but your blood pressure is high still.  How can a plane crash cause high blood pressure; you tell me
.
  It was always 120 over 80, but now I
feel guilty if I eat
pretzels or
pepperoni pizza
while I watch the Bears in frustration.  My favorite pickles are loaded with sodium; I curse at the company that makes them
as
I skip pas
t
that entire aisle in the grocery store.  Michelle tries her best with the
healthy organic meals
she cooks, and I appreciate them more and more as the years pass, but I'll admit to you, since she is busy at work again and not around to hear me, that I don't really like them all that much, but eat them and say they are delicious because the
y
come out of
her
kitchen and out of her kindness.
  I want a cheeseburger, damn it, but am content sharing a veggie burger with her, minus the pickles usually.

I'm getting old and I know it.  I stopped working la
s
t year and now I wait for the letter carrier to show up with my pension and Social Security checks.  Really, Social Security in 2025 you've got to be kidding.  It's
true;
none of the right wing foreboding prognostications have materialized, at least not yet.  I hate feeling age leach its way into my body, zap its energy and diminish its form.  I go to the gym several times each week, but that's not enough to satisfy that mean bitch Mother Nature; why won't she let up a little, my luck would have crushed her if it hadn't taken off so abruptly, I curse her every time I pass a mirror.

Joseph seems to be aging well and he wants to keep working.  His boyfriend
is
bugging him to quit so they can retire to Florida, or somewhere warmer than Chicago.  I don't quite get the fascination people have with Florida; it
is
mostly swampy, unbearably sweltering, largely under-educated, with hot-headed motorists seething as they try to navigate around the old people who won't quit driving, and it is plagued with mosquitoes and other unsavory pests of every description, including the human kind.  God, I hope they don't actually decide to move there; better to deal with the cold and hire someone to shovel the driveway.

Whether in Florida, or Fresno, or Flint, or Frontier Land, what will become of me? 
W
ill I go peacefully in my sleep like Mr
s
. Klein did, or suffer for years with dementia
like poor Aunt Doreen?
  Will
I
die in a fiery crash like my parents, or be found hanging in the woods like Iris?  Will I live a long and healthy life well into old age like Mr. Casslemond's wife, or might heart disease cut it short as it turned out for Mr. Casslemond 22 years before her.

I remember his funeral more than 35 years ago as if it was this morning; the family so badly shaken by his passing, Christian and his brother
Carter
numbed so completely by it.  Joseph, Richard and I walked out of the church that day together and we stopped by the limousine that waited to drive the mourners to the gravesite.  Christian opened his mouth as if to speak when I took his hand, but nothing came out, silenced completely by a magnitude of grief that I had almost forgotten could exist.  I would never be able to fully realize the closeness of this family, how committed they were to each other and to living life as it should be, for it was one that I could never have, first as an only child, then an orphan later on living in a makeshift and somewhat dysfunctional family.

I had been asked by Charles to give a eulogy for Mr. Casslemond; no one he said could know the things that I did or even try to speak of them.  Of course I said I would, but when I sat down to put some of my thoughts onto paper, I realized how difficult this would be.  I struggled for two days, with probably 30 or 40 pages of crumpled notebook paper in the trash can, and still not able to articulate what was trapped inside of me.  The funeral was tomorrow
;
what was I going to do?  I called Joseph for advice like I always did and he knew the answer like he always did.  Pretend you are speaking to Mr. Casslemond
himself; tell him how you feel.
 
All these years,
I saved the handwritten
notes I had written out and kept in
a shoe box with the old photographs of my parents.
I still thought about Mr. Casslemond nearly every day.

Know that the pain you feel is as it should be; what you have lost is very, very real.  But also know that your pain will be lessened because of what he did.  Comfort
may
one day
come
when you think of his life and what I will tell you about mine.  He didn't even know who I was until I was 14 years old, yet he made me feel like one of this own grandchildren.  He gave me this family because he saw that I didn't have one of my own.  He could have made his life easier and looked away.  He could have pretended I did not exit and then I wouldn't have; I would never have appeared, I would have just faded from memory, suffering on my own.

Easing the suffering of another person is a wonderful thing; but saving a life is something most of us will never have an opportunity for.  I was lucky because
Mr. Casslemond
chose to save my life instead of letting me go.  My luck and his love have brought me here to speak to you about his life.  But you know about that already
;
more than I do.  I see some workers from the produce company; should I tell you what kind of a boss he was?  Should I tell you that he treated his employee
s like he treated his friends?   You know that already, more than I do. 
His children are all here too; do you want to hear me say what a good father he was?  You know all that already, more than I do.

You might not know about me.  I was left an orphan when I was just 14 years old and went to live with my aunt and uncle.  I had no brothers or sisters or grandparents who could take care of me.  Things were not good then; I was alone and very unhappy for a long time.  One evening in the springtime, I answered a knock at the door and it was
him.
  Nice to meet you, Mr. Casslemond, was all I could think of saying.  I didn't know what else to say or do.  He took care of that; he knew what to do.  He gave me a life back, he took me to baseball games, he had parties on my birthday, he went to school when my uncle was busy working, he called on the phone just to talk, he kept after me to study, he helped me with my college applications.  He did what my own grandfather could not do, he supported me when I did things right, and he reminded me when I screwed things up.

Mr. Casslemond
is gone, but we are still here.  We can't let grief get too much in our way; we need to keep
things going as best we can.
  We can't call on him for help now, but we don't have to go it alone either.  We have each other.  I have Christian, who is like a bother to me.  You remind me so much of him; did I ever tell you that?  Promise yourselves that you will be there for one another and I will do that too.  Don't forget about someone or look away.  Don't abandon someone if you can ease their suffering.  You might even help save a life. 
Mr. Casslemond
helped save mine and I will never forget him.

I folded the notebook pages, yellowed with the decades, and put them back in the shoebox with the photographs of my parents.  The phone rang just then and it was Christian.  I think he was paying attention to what I said at his grandfather's funeral; he had never forgotten about me or abandoned me.  I've got four tickets to the Blackhawks game on Saturday, can you and Michelle go?  They are playing the Red Wings; blue line seats too!  He reminded me so much of Mr. Casslemond.

Joseph and I would be turning 65 in just another couple of weeks and his boyfriend and Michelle
decided
it would be the perfect time to throw a party, since none of
us
could remember the last time we'd had one. 
We would
do it on December 8
th
in my honor, the day after Joseph was to become eligible for Medicare.  This was no small deal by 2025; medical costs were exorbitant and the
price tag
for
private insurance was
probably worse.
The conservative movement that had swept the country over the prior decade
and a half
had done away with the
notion
of public
health coverage, such a
concept
long ago tossed into the trash bin known as socialism.  I was fortunate to have excellent retirement benefits from Flanders and Associates, but Joseph had spent his career employed mainly by non-profit
organizations that didn't have comparable resources.  For the average middle class Joe, or Joseph if you prefer, Medicare was a blessing.

They were going all out for this party; that was clear from the start.  I had the biggest apartment so it was the unanimous choice as the most suitable venue, and Joseph's boyfriend wasted no time working on the decorations, the flower arrangements, and the tables that he was planning to set up for the buffet.  His first choice was to hire a caterer for the food, but Michelle convinced him that they could do the cooking themselves; it would be fun and a lot less expensive.  The three of us spent hours together cooking in the days leading up to the event, and Michelle had been right, we had a lot of fun doing it.  Joseph was the only one of us still employed full time, but he would stop by after work to sample what we had made and to have wine with us.  It was a good time for the four of us to be together, peaceful and satisfying for me especially I think.  If turning 65 had proven to be a difficult milestone for others, it wasn't shaping up to be a problem for me.