We lost James Earl Jones to start the week. I posted the news story on social media with the caption, “Well, darn.” Death visits us all, but it’s still saddening to lose someone who has given so much to us all.
In a real sense, we haven’t lost him, of course. That big smile and that warm, authoritative voice will resonate through history. “THIS is CNN.” “I find your lack of faith disturbing.” And of course my favorite, that wonderful tribute to the sport of baseball in Terrence Mann’s soliloquy at the climax of Field of Dreams: “People will come, Ray.”
And if that wasn’t enough, speaking of baseball, the next day we learned of the passing of Ed Kranepool. He was one of my childhood heroes, one of the very first New York Mets, who was there when the team set records for futility in 1962. And he was also there when the Miracle Mets won the World Series in 1969, one of the best memories of my youth.
Finally, on Thursday, came the unkindest cut of all, when the Milwaukee Brewers announced the passing of Hank, the cute little dog who for a few years romped around the field as the team mascot.
When one’s heroes die, it gets a person thinking about one’s personal inevitability. I won’t be leaving behind any memorable movie performances or sports triumphs, but I hope to have left more pleasant memories than not with the people I’ve run across.
I guess I do hope that between now and then, I’ll have convinced some people to stop taking sides in wars — maybe even enough people to reach a tipping point where we take the side of humanity against the real enemy, which is war itself.
Beyond that, I guess I hope to have met some more friends, to have generated more smiles than hate mail, to have finished a few more books and kept my blog streak going to the end, and to have done my best to love my neighbor, remembering always that we are all neighbors on this little planet.
It’s funny, it will be wonderful to see Red, and my parents and brother, and the other friends and family who crossed that way ahead of me, but the thought that brings the tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat is the idea of being greeted at the gate by Willow, Tucker, Poppins, Samson, Baxter, Buster, and all the other furry friends who have settled into my heart along the way.
Whenever the moment comes that I realize my proverbial time has come, I’m pretty sure I want to be so busy living life that my first instinct is to say, “but I’m not done.” But then I guess I’ll give a big sigh and say, “Well, darn.”
