Make it happen

One night recently I awoke to use the bathroom. The large 10-inch in diameter clock in my bedroom read 3:45. The hands on the clock were almost straight across and to my playful dead-of-night imagination looked like the flatline on a hospital monitor.

So as I took care of business those clock hands became a “memento mori.” I thought briefly, not in a morose but in a serio-comic way, on my death before moving quickly and eagerly on to extended thoughts of my viewing at, say, Connell’s on Broad Street.

Suppressing a cackle, what kind of music did I want at my viewing, I asked myself, and, quietly humming, careful not to wake Betty, who would be appalled at such ghoulish nonsense, I began to audition several possibilities.

The cathedral statues wept at the classic “Danny Boy” performed at Sen. John McCain’s funeral service that you can reference on YouTube. But, no, I didn’t want people to cry. This traditional Irish grieving song wouldn’t do.

Also on YouTube you can find multiple versions of “Amazing Grace,” standard fare on funeral occasions, from the cool United States Naval Academy Choir to the solitary but emotionally explosive Aretha. Though it is good to be humble meeting one’s maker, I don’t feel especially like a wretch who needs saving, nor do I relish being remembered that way, as a lost soul.

So, no, “Amazing Grace,” didn’t ring true either.

My mind drifted to the unconventional, to a wonderful night a decade or so ago when hosted by son Tim and daughter-in-law Donna, we sat four rows from the legendary Arlo Guthrie at the beautifully intimate Flying Monkey in Plymouth, New Hampshire.

The short and sincere audience-participation “My Peace” was Arlo’s closer: “My peace, my peace is all I’ve got that I can give to you, / I give my peace to green and black and red and white and blue, / I pass my peace around and about ‘cross hands of every hue, / I guess my peace is just ‘bout all I’ve got to give to you.”

Yes, that’s it. That’s what I want.

I want to be a teacher to the end, passing on a lesson, giving a little gift, leaving a loving lasting legacy.

Those of you who read my last senior moment will remember my cap collection. In the coffin with me will be the one on which sun and moon spoon together.

Make it happen, my children, make it happen. Please.