The Drag Is

The drag is that when someone goes, everything that they ever knew, learned or was willing to share goes with them.

Look at yourself. Look at your memories, all that hard-earned knowledge. What, you wasted your whole life not learning anything? No. Your brain accumulated so many memories and talents that literally, when you go, they all go, to be dispersed by the atoms that formed them.

Cherish them, those things that you know, because it will all disappear forever when you do, without a trace, unless you change that.

Luckily I had the forethought to ask that I be able to videotape my father's story. Which we did, every night for a couple of weeks, me over my martinis and he over his scotches, and I have the tapes somewhere. Damn, I'm glad I did that. I had no idea of my father's past and his recollections were amazing.

My mother was much less forthcoming -- she's too shy to tell her story in that much detail. But I recorded that too.

Thing is, it's all over now. I can't double-check the story. A huge mind, a mind much larger than mine, with amazing memories and experiences, has disappeared forever. No forensic anything can ever bring that incredible series of experiences back. I'll try, though, but look to your own . . . get all you can from them and never take them for granted.

I didn't. Thank you, Father, for all the wisdom you left behind. I for one always knew it was there.