Echos

Senior died last week. I worked with him and his crew on Monday. We were all laughing, working hard, getting things done. It was always about getting things done with him, and enjoying yourself while you were doing it. He had a son who he was working for, a daughter he loved, and a team that hung on every story, followed every suggestion and emulated every example he set. On Wednesday he went home from work feeling ill. He was 49. Junior and the crew were, are, will always be devastated.

Kevin White died last week. He was the mayor of Boston when I was a kid. Or you could say he was the mayor of Boston when Boston was a second rate city simmering with racial tension. That was when the South End was rubble and slums, when Quincy market was just a shell, when the elevated train rumbled down Washington Street, and the demolition for the I-95 that was never going to be built left a gash through Roxbury and Dorchester. Boston still has it's problems but 35 years and a few other hardworking Mayors have turned that rat-trap of a city I knew into what is a pretty livable place. People of all political stripes are devastated.

Etta James died last week. She was a R+B singer with a smokey voice, a heroin habit, and the luck and talent to have created one of the greatest songs of all time. "At Last" is the movie soundtrack to every romance anyone ever dreamed about. I don't know if creating a piece of expression way bigger than you can ever be is a blessing or a curse, but I know that if you are a music lover, regardless of your preferred genre, you are devastated.

My friends cousin killed himself last week. He called his mother and told her he was tired. He called his father and told him he was done. Then he hung himself. I did not know him, I do not know his state of mind, but I know that he threw away the one, true gift that the universe tosses our way. The people that loved him are devastated.

I don't know about God. Neither do you. You have your faith, I have my doubts. I know echos though. Ripples in space and time that follow us after we are gone. The things we embrace, the things we crave, are only with us for a blink of an eye. Todays paper had a blurb about a store that was selling a magnificent $20 a pound cheese. Breathless reporting that is really advertising aimed at people that will never get that no matter how good a piece of cheese can be it will never be $20 good. I would take one more story from Senior any day. I will walk the Boston City streets this weekend with the memory of the way it used to look. I'll start my romance soundtrack in my head every time a girl takes my breath away. I'll savior creations gift to me all the more because it should not, cannot, be wasted.

May my echos be as profound.