If you are a Facebook friend I apologize for the redundancy. There are a number of readers who are not in that circle. This post was always meant for the blog but after I drafted it it was so easy just to past it on FB that I did that first.
At a time not so long ago if you had asked me what I would be doing when I had just turned 57 what I would have told you would have been the same stuff most lawyer’s do. My guess back at age forty was that I would be in private practice so...mewhere and have my name on some letterhead on Crane’s paper. Perhaps I would be on my second marriage (to a secretary no doubt-how cliché). I would probably still live in a modest house but I would have a great cottage up in Canada. (The alternate universe theory is that I would have been working in Toronto and living in the Annex area slipping out for coffee and eggs at St. Lawrence Market on Saturday mornings).
In so many ways you simply have to accept what comes in this life. Dreaming and planning or simply guessing, don’t make anything true. I do not live in the Annex. I am still quite happily married. I am not in private practice. Truth be told, I am a family man.
Last night I went to Primus’s last concert performance with the East Lansing High School Orchestra. This is another in the series of last events that commenced with his clearing out his hockey locker at the end of March. Primus’s classes will be over next Friday and he will graduate on Sunday June 2nd. For Moose, or Primus or John Lee if you need his real name high school will be done.
Personally I have loved the boy’s orchestra concerts over the years. Each year the group that the lad has moved up with has just gotten better and better. Last night was no exception, the music was moving and crowd was appreciative. Because it was “senior night” Primus got to wear something other than a monkey suit. His attire was elegant in a sort of late 1950s jazz style. Grey shirt, black tie, black tasseled shoes and a hat that in combination looked absolutely hipster hung so tres cool on his bulky frame. If ever a person had the physique to be a bass player it is Primus.
In January 1995 Francie and I lived 9 houses and two blocks from where we live now. In January 1995 Francie and I lived in a world where we knew how to perfectly raise perfect children. At that time she was suffering from stomach distress. Oh what distress it would become. But back then our world was "our" world. It was a world of loss and hurt at the time. We had lost her father, my mother and our nephew in eight months. Still our future was something that belonged to us. On August 26, 1995 our world no longer was our own. Hell, now I am not sure I could raise an invasive plant correctly.
The second song last night was the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana by Mascagni. As Primus commenced to play he leaned into the piece. His long fingers arched up and down on the neck of the bass. In time with the music he bopped, his frame moved with intensity and power and he swung his head back and forth. At times his eyes clenched shut and his brow furrowed. As God is my witness I believe I saw more emotion on that child’s face as he played that one piece than I have seen in the last ten years of his life in other environments. And the Intermezzo was beautiful and moving. Primus seemed part of the music last night and that unity between the player and the song brought tears to my eyes.
Since 1995 the lives of my wife and I has not been our own, nor will they ever be again. From the lows to the highs first Primus and then Secundus have demanded by their mere existence that I be more than just me. They and the cosmos have mandated that I be a part of an us, part of a family. I have been called upon to be a better being and maybe some of the time I have achieved that calling. Being part of a family even a lunatic one is where I was supposed to be.
On June 2nd I will be on stage at the Wharton Center in East Lansing, Michigan in my role as a school board member. Come that day God willing I will get to shake my son’s hand as he walks across that stage to pick up his diploma. I am sure my eyes will fill again with tears.See More
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