Perspectives

Most weekdays I can sit in my backyard and hear only the chirpings of birds. Rumble from a distant road serves as a reminder that regardless of one’s momentary reverie, another world does exist … and that it will inevitably encroach. Some afternoons a neighbor’s children, two delightful little girls, are unleashed from their home with uncontrollable glee, giggling and howling with life and unadulterated joy.

And in those delightful moments before the sibling rivalry inevitably flares, before “had it first” is screamed, before the younger, true to form, howls “Mommeee,” there is such sweetness in the universe. These children in these moments present the sublimity of life. And then, poof, gone. So, too, the tranquility. Sigh.

Loss. I find those little roadside shrines to the dead a curious thing. Often decked out in cheesy, garish plastic flowers — they are garlands to the dead commemorating the sorrow of life … for the living.

It’s as if illegal Hondurans were hired to construct the memorial. Months later, covered in road grime, the fake red and yellow flowers now faded are distorted and distended by Florida’s sun. Sometimes, the grieving leave a stuffed animal, frequently a teddy bear or the like. Inevitably the belly bloats, rips apart and as you whip by at 60 miles an hour, you look back across the ditch and see the stuffing whirling in the wind. This is where Sarah Sue died when Tucker, three sheets to the wind, left the road. This is where Sarah Sue’s mom’s life — inconsolable with grief — ended. Sigh.

I’ve a modest proposal. As important as it is to remember the dead, it is critical to commemorate being alive. Particularly where we grew, matured or thrived as a human being. It’s a self-indulgent (and aren’t we humans, after all, so very self-indulgent) little statement, one of those “Kilroy was here” proclamations. A beacon, a remembrance of things past, to the glorious, meaningful or significant.

Say Sarah Sue survived and she and Tucker lived happily ever after. But once upon a time, when in the full splendor of their glorious youth, they lost their virginity together in the woods just off 110th Street. Why not a little shrine to that quintessential event, a little memorial to lost innocence and found pleasure? A modest stone etched to say” “SS & T found themselves in pleasure. It was such joy. Spring 2001.”

Suh-weeeet! Or, say that you’re in college and during one incredible lecture the quintessential light bulb clicks on for you changing your life’s direction. It was a eureka moment! Life was never the same again. Why not an unpretentious brass plate attached to a nearby wall that simply states: “In this classroom during the fall 1966 term, DJF’s intellectual boundaries were pushed way back. And it was joy.

In garages where PCs were created or kitchens where Veg-O-Matics emerged, place markers acknowledging the event. Even firings! An unassuming plaque on a tree: “In this building in 1983, CRJ was fired for rank insubordination. It was a liberating, life-expanding gift. And joy ultimately followed.”

It is suggested that our biggest challenge as human beings is being in the moment. Do seize the bird’s transcendent song. Embrace the child’s joyful, exuberant laughter. Life’s moments. Times of found pleasures. Acknowledge. Revel. Mark.

And repeat.