ONE DAY AT A TIME

It seems so sad that we have just so many days in our lives. Too bad we can’t trade them in for newer days, with better endings, and some the ones that were good we keep for eternity. Too bad we can’t go into those days as we would a door, opening one day and closing one day. Like a room, we could take each day and if we needed to, repaint it or decorate it differently.

Recently an old buddy of mine Charlie passed away unexpectedly of cancer, lung cancer, in both his lungs. He was a little older than me, but he was a wonderful guy. Oh, I know, you are thinking: here we go, someone dies and we suddenly have a saint, a hero a true gentleman who never did wrong. You would be right to say that too. He had his issues; about as many as I do I’m sure, maybe less than yours, but all in all, a wonderful guy.

He was better than the average looking guy, simple in his outlook in life and willing to be accepting of anything different than him. Maybe that is why we got along so well. I remember him always at my house, and one-year right before he left home, he came to my house for Christmas Eve dinner, the Italian traditional meal of 7 fishes, of which he tried them all to his satisfaction and mine. He was there one year and helped me go into the woods and get a Chanukah bush for my other buddy Phil.

It was after the particular dinner that they both undid me, getting me so drunk as we traveled from bar to bar. I think they were ordering and tossing theirs while I drank up. It was Charlie who taught me the drinking game of saluting Cardinal Puff, where once again, I got loaded. At 2:30 am in a bar, they all look good as the saying goes, and he and Phil were goading me to ask this truly unfortunate looking girl for a date. The trouble was I felt sorry for her and decided it was the right thing to do! Nothing happened because I never did call her, when I got over my hangover.

Charlie came to my wedding, and that was the last I had seen him. He went on to his life and then one day in the mid 70’s I ran into him on 54^th Street in Manhattan, he told he was working at a job nearby and we exchanged phone numbers but never ever connected again. Then he found me on Facebook, where we exchanged messaged etc.

Then on Facebook someone posted that Charlie had cancer and wasn’t expected to make it through the night. The next morning I was afraid to go on Facebook, holding out with false hope that some miracle would come about and he would rally, but no, that was not to be. I don’t know if Charlie knew he had it or not, but I didn’t, but wished I had, just to tell him how great life was in those days.

RIP Charlie.