Two things on the mind

You can never really escape all thoughts

I'm sitting here in the Flames Grill, a theme restaurant as soulless as you'd expect one situated 30 feet from an airline gate to be. As I await my call to head somewhere more exciting, sipping on a glass of red wine that was far less offensively priced than the bad beer on tap, I've been thinking about a couple of things that fit on this particular page. Here are those two not particularly uplifting thoughts:

Birthdays

I had a birthday two weeks ago. I turned 50. That was a tough number to digest in a few ways. Besides the obvious fact that it means I'm getting freaking old, the hardest part of it has to do with my mom. She died a couple of weeks after her 56th birthday (it was a long time ago - she didn't have me scandalously young). I've obviously been closing in on passing her final age since the day she died. But now I'm in the same decade and it seems closer than ever. Her fifties were when she got a cough she couldn't shake. The one that her doctors called pneumonia or pleurisy but couldn't solve no matter what they prescribed. It's when she could feel her mind slipping - and wasn't alone in noticing it - but didn't know why. And it's when she ultimately went through the worst year I hope to ever witness. It wasn't a partial decade entirely without redemption for her - it's when she first met her daughter in law, for example. But there was far more bad than good, and 40 percent of the decade she never got to claim. Thinking about all that from a different, closer perspective kinda sucks. It's times like these that I wish I didn't remember dates or notice patterns like I do. It would be easier to stay out of my own mind.

Firsts

I had a call out of the blue last week to have coffee with a friend, Josh. He's a guy I have known his whole life, though never particularly well. His dad and mine were close friends since before either of us were born, and I spent most of my first 17 new year's eves at their home. But then things shifted after I left home. I rarely saw his parents, and only really knew them as the adults they were when I was a kid. But Josh apprenticed to be a horseshoer under my dad, spending several days a week with him for years. In a way that is more shorthand than reality, and much more devoid of bitterness than it sounds, I've often thought of Josh as the son my dad never had.

Josh wanted to talk about Dad, and it was past time for it since the last time I had seen him was at Dad's funeral in 2019. It was interesting to talk to someone who saw dad differently than I did - who knew a different guy in many ways. But it was also a pleasant surprise to see that the difference was far less stark than I imagined. Josh's eyes were open to my dad's ‘quirks’ in ways I'd frankly never thought to expect. It was a good talk. But I'll never not be nervous about those first conversations with a friend of dad's - not until I know the lay of that particular land.

The other impetus for this catch up was another reason that it was overdue. Josh's dad had died almost exactly a year ago, and I had had COVID at the time and couldn't go to the funeral. As I was sitting at the coffee shop waiting for him, I was thinking about that year of firsts after a parent dies. His first birthday that he isn't there for. Your first birthday he isn't there for. The first Christmas. All the grandkid firsts. It goes on and on. If there is a blessing of the end of the first year it's that most of the firsts are in the rearview mirror. I told him that, and I could see him recognize the relief in that. But then I felt obligated to point out that the seconds could pack a punch, too. And that I can attest that every point up to the 17th has some sharp edges to look out for. Beyond that I can't yet be sure, but I can sure bet on what's likely.