21

Aaron's friends are turning twenty one left and right. Erik left and Zach right were friends of Aaron's from the earliest school days. They're young men in their third year of college now. Aaron is still barely 18.

I saw one of Aaron's classmates last week. A fellow Aaron played with from age 5. Neighborhood buddies. Saying hello is more of a sizing up exercise. I'm happy to see these guys, and I take the opportunity to take in all that I can about them to help imagine what Aaron might be like today. The clothes, hair styles, jobs, interests, where they've been. Where would Aaron be, what would he say, how would he look? I grasp for something in Aaron's friends to give me a glimpse of what should have been.

Thanksgiving weekend is over. The college aged children of our friends are going back to school. That's the way it's supposed to be.

The Genius is the Most Indebted

Essays and Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson is a book from which I read. There's a place for this book in the book shelf, but the writing is so pleasing I keep it close. To read a book for me means to read from one of several books until one by one they're finished or eliminated. Sort of like flicking channels. (Some people say flipping, switching, or changing channels. I say flicking.)

I like books. If I want to know how a book ends, there's no waiting. There was a day when I couldn't give enough attention to reading a page of a book. Those days were high school, college, and many years after. Paxil changed my reading skills in 1998.
Where was that magic in 1974? Maybe at 50 I'll go back to school.

I wonder if instead of one course exploring the books of great authors, we had a school system based on the thoughts written by great thinkers, would our culture benefit? Are we better off if we become a nation of computer programmers, scientists, mathematicians, geologists, or philosophers? Are we better to know what science says about the universe or are there no new thoughts of value. Do we need to know if global warming is real or is it enough to live by giving more than taking, leave something for the future, nothing lasts forever? We own nothing and are loaned everything.

Emerson in writing about Shakespeare says no great men are original. When we think about the impressive creations/inventions or our time, we connect them to perceived great men or women. Genius is a crown we give to football coaches who devise "new" ways to move a football down a field at least 10 yards at a time in no more than 4 tries. We also have a genius who gave us rockets to send satellite robots into space to better take advantage of the laws of physics so we can have computerized voice give us directions to the grocery store from our home, or deliver a live warhead with pinpoint accuracy to an unsuspecting bad guy.

Emerson wrote, The greatest genius is the most indebted man. An indebted man who knows he owes acknowledgements, is humble. The wisdom of Emerson's observation is worth acquiring today.

Hard to Imagine

The more time passes the harder it is to recall your voice and mannerisms. I saw your boss, Matt yesterday and he was sporting that square jaw, tight lip look you picked up from him. Windsor Lawn trucks always cause my heart to flip and a tear to drip.

When we were together on this day in August '04 I thought we were on our way to a life of good times for all of us. We were looking to the future. Time was not on our side. We never thought that would be your last August. Another August has passed and we are slipping into winter. I dread winter. You loved snow. To me it's just cold and slow.

Time is not my friend. Time does not heal. Time steals our memories. Time dulls our senses. Time laughs at our pain and drags us further into the abyss. Time is brazen. Without shame, time swaggers in praise for healing, but the two-faced creep pushes dementia as a cure.

Air Bear, we're getting by and holding on.

What's He Doing In This Picture?

The shirt, the sweater-shirt, the braided wrist band are all here. The clothes hang in a closet and keep their stories to themselves. "I'll tell you later, I don't want to talk about it right now", was a typical answer from Aaron when pressed to elaborate on these MBA Intervention pictures. We know the date was October, 2004 and Aaron, a summer Intervention MVP, was invited to be a student leader at the fall Intervention. Boys became men at Intervention.

Johnny Cash is the music of Intervention: Don't Take Your Guns to Town, Drive On, Me and Paul, I Still Miss Someone, Folsom Prison Blues. It's OK for men to cry. Anger is only one emotion of a man. A real man has a spiritual side. Real men fall down, get up, and move on. Real men respect others. Johnny Cash and Intervention have special meaning to Aaron.

The watch continues to slip time. It's in a drawer. I look at it. Time keeps on slipping into the future. Time is not my friend. It's a bandit, a thief in the night. Time heals nothing. Time's a killer. Aaron didn't like time. Time made him wait. Aaron couldn't, wouldn't wait. To Be Continued.. were three words he couldn't read at age four but he knew exactly what they meant: You, Aaron Meyer, have to wait! "NOOOOO!!! TO BE ConTENyoud!!" Oh, Air Bear. What you didn't understand made you what we love.

If his ears made the first impression on me the moment Aaron was born, his fingers and hands were a close second. "A piano player" was the doctor's observation as they weighed the new born. In church I had Aaron's hand on one side of me and Patrick's on the other. I remember those little boy hands. Patricks held on to mine. They were little boy soft. Aaron's were not damp, but a little sticky. Just right for catching footballs. Those long fingers eventually glided the strings of a guitar. A real man explores his artistic side.

Smoke from the fire is Unchained. Captured in a photograph but gone forever. If I press my face into the sweater, maybe a hint of smoke is twisted in the fabric. Drive On.

Intervention is roughing-it I understand. The grief journey is a rough and rocky road. The leaves are falling, and I'll always miss my son. I see those eyes and those arms. I'm sorry our life ended when it had just begun. I wonder what you could have told me about this picture?

You're Always On My Mind.