The Momentum of Mortality

   



     "We must honor while we can

      The vertical man

      Though we value none

      But the horizontal one"



     W.H.Auden



     Yesterday I attended a celebration of the life of my friend Brian. As is usually the case, the celebration was held after said life had ended. I spent time with friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in over a decade. More than a few I no longer was able to recognize. We shared happy memories of an old friend and celebrated all that we cherished about him. Each of us learned something new about the departed.



      Most of all what we learned was that we wouldn't be seeing him at the next SCA event, or the next role-playing game, or the next party.



      And so we filled our paper plates with finger food and cheese and cold cuts and we shared old memories and vowed to keep in touch, but we all knew that we were more likely to meet again over a bier than a beer.



      The crowd began to thin. I dropped off the friends that I had brought with me and made my way to a smaller celebration at the home of a couple of other dear friends who had invited me. For a moment I had the mad impulse to roll down the windows, crank up the radio and barrel down the highway like Hunter S. Thompson.



     I turned up Charlie Musselwhite on the radio, rolled the window down and felt the unseasonably warm California January wind on my face, pretending for another few moments that we were all still young and immortal.



   





     Be seeing you.