The Past as Prologue

I'm too sentimental for this. And it's only getting worse with age. Annually this is one of my recurring dreaded moments: the inevitable lists of famous people who have died through the course of the year. Pop culture icons. Musicians. Actors. Luminaries. Statesmen. This year the list includes Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie, Jim Nabors, Joseph Wapner, and Don Rickles; there was Roger Moore who was perhaps my favorite James Bond, and Adam West, the quintessential Batman. There were showmen Jerry Lewis and Monty Hall. Passing musicians in my personal Hall of Fame this year include Al Jarreau, Greg Allman, Chuck Berry, Glen Campbell, Walter Becker, Tom Petty, Fats Domino, and David Cassidy, although plenty will take issue with that last one.

And these are just to name a few. There are certainly others on the list, like Chuck Barris of "Gong Show" fame, and Hugh Hefner of Playboy. Age was the determining factor for many, along with other natural causes. Suicide took more than its share (although I'm not sure what the share of suicide might be). Often The Grim Reaper wielded a sickle in the shape of the Big "C". As it always is, it's a long and diverse list. Some on the list changed history; some changed their particular craft; some didn't change a thing but helpfully entertained. Some simply changed me — or at least provided the soundtrack to the various changes I was undergoing.

And I will admit to the melancholia I feel at the loss of these 2x4's that have formed some part of the background and underlying structure of my years. Their passing confirms the inexorable movement of time — underscoring that the "way things are" is merely a transient movement along the way to whatever next will be. And every other day of the year I celebrate this movement that I pray will eventually be judged "progress." God knows I'm not the least bit interested in this present state of affairs being the culmination of anything to which we collectively aspire.

And yet seeing this long list every year reminds me that there are all kinds of joys along the way — secular "Ebenezers" to borrow a word from scripture and the old hymn; marker stones along the way of something memorable and good (the "Gong Show" notwithstanding).

Most of us will never show up on year-end lists of this sort. The ponds into which we throw our pebbles are much too small and remote. But they are our ponds, nonetheless, and we care about them and the ripples we set in motion. Institutionally we often ask, "if this organization ceased to exist would anyone notice or miss it?" Perhaps the better use of these year-end lists, then, is less to simply lament the passing of memorable personalities and the times in which they flourished, and more to prompt us to toss a few more pebbles with whatever time we have left.

I will miss these departed souls — their shows, their songs, the jokes and the laughs, and the associations I connect with them all. But only for a moment. There are, after all, new songs being written.

Ironic and appropriate, then, that at the very time I've been reading these lists of passing we have been playing with our 1-year-old grandson, celebrating not the past but all that lies ahead…

…in his hands…

…and, even yet, in ours.

Happy New Year.