The Chapters We Keep

Shakespeare's seven stages of man represent the journey from birth to death: infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon, and extreme old age. Don't ask me what a pantaloon is -- some things are best dressed in mystery.

Having reached senior citizen status I tend to see the parts of my life as chapters in a book of life — each representing a loved one or a friend who has passed on -- with grief as the demarcation point, the end of the chapter. There can be no way of forgetting those who have left our lives — but there can be new chapters — not as replacements for those who are gone but as a beginning of the adventure that is friendship.

Chapter one may be my sister Karen. We were sixteen months apart in age but equal in our affection for each other. We stood by each other in good times and bad times. When she died two years ago, I felt that a part of my life had died with her. And it had. Except for the great memories of childhood we had shared and that I now carry alone.

There are my boyhood friends Jeff and Marty, both deserving of a chapter. We walked the streets of Levittown, Pennsylvania together, beginning at age six, and tried to figure out all the mysteries of our young lives. We met in the first grade, and with them went my early childhood.

In college there was the professor and novelist Sidney Offit -- a brilliant author who believed in my talents. He was the guide through my college years, and our friendship lasted for years thereafter.

Then there was Norman Lear and Aaron Spelling and Bill Persky and Johnny Carson, men I had worked with in TV during my early years, men who had nourished my creativity. If by some miracle they walked into my home office today, I would blink but open my arms in greeting.

Then there was Diane S., a psychologist friend who offered me the benefit of her wisdom throughout the lean middle years. She was not only wise but capable of laughter. Laughter is a high form of wisdom. Worth more than a chapter.

While they are gone, their time in my life is a chapter or two worth keeping in that book. And of course my parents -- so deserving of a whole book that I’m writing it now.

Not only writers but everyone has this book within them, the unforgettable few who we loved, who died or drifted away, but whom we never lost. They cannot be reduced to categories of our life because they blend into other chapters, but they are all part of that book that is our life. One we return to time and again because it holds a permanent place in our hearts and minds. Enjoy your own book. For all the joy and the grief that caring for people brings, it is worth keeping. And without diminishing my human chapters, I have a whole book filled with dogs and cats I have loved -- long gone but never forgotten.