My Time in Life

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Once, after my father died, I had a powerfully disturbing dream about him. He was in some semi-other world and was becoming more remote because he was losing interest in this world, and in me. He was becoming detached. He was drifting away and would never return.

Lou Grant wearing a tuxedo, drinking heavily in a bar, to Mary Richards: "First came the separation. then the divorce. Now she's remarried. Mary, don't you see what it all means?"
Mary: "No. What?"
Lou: "It means Edie and I are drifting apart."

Only later did I realize that I felt that he left me because he didn't love me enough to stay. And that it was my fault for not having been a good enough son nor a success for him to want to stay. I woke up devastated.

That day Harvey and I were playing tennis and I told him about my dream.  Harvey said that learning how to die was our task in life as we got into (and now beyond) middle age.

The death of my friend Jay Trachman two weeks ago has brought mortality sharply to the front of my concerns. And I know what to do about it too. Harvey more than once has told me what to do about life, and thus how to get ready for death - "Get on with it"