A clean bill of a healthy state of mind.

Thoughts drifting.

Sitting on the elementary schoolyard swing set again, singing “Jeremiah was a bullfrog” with my two schoolmates, Renée and Rita, while we saw who could swing the highest without getting the teacher’s attention.

After recess, returning to the fourth grade classroom and hanging out with the guys who challenged everyone to memorisation games, using pulldown maps of countries, states and land features.

Talking about a new literature one of the guys had discovered, called “science fiction.”

Passing love notes to Renée in class, getting caught and reprimanded by Mrs. Tallman, who threatened to tell my mother, a first-grade teacher in the same school, down in the modern pod section where the open classroom concept was being tested on teachers and students, whether they wanted it or not.

Renée dead a year later from a blood disorder that I assume was leukemia.

Some thoughts repeat themselves, overshadowing memories that might have been important at one time, including spelling, grammar, math, history, social studies and geography.

How many politicians who want to make teaching a minimum-wage job with no benefits have children in public schools?

Could you be convinced to vote for a real person like yourself whose lifestyle matches most of the ones in your voting district and is not tempted by wealth?

That is, if you have the right and privilege to vote, which you exercise, seriously considering the ramifications of your decision.

If such a person would register as a candidate for public office.

Renée’s lively personality left my life when we were ten, 20.8% of my current life.

Now, news of friends’ parents dying is growing common.

In middle age, these are the days of my life.

My parents just called to inform me Mrs Abernathy had died.

John, Carol, Beth and Don – my thoughts and prayers are with you as you begin the grieving process for the death of your mother.  She was a sweet lady, the consummate Mom for all children, loving the neighbourhood kids, church kids, and school kids without showing favourites.

I sit here, remembering her influence on me as I grew up in Colonial Heights – hosting church youth socials in the backyard, supporting Sing Out Kingsport and school musicals – knowing Renée never had the attention from Mrs. Abernathy that I enjoyed throughout my teenage years.

Neither will I have been the type of parent to provide that community support for my children and their friends/schoolmates.

From one end of life to another, death is a constant.

Yet, as much as we know about the whys and wherefores…the loss, the end of forming new memories and absence of wisdom, love and insight from deceased family and friends, young or elderly, change our perspectives.

How does it change my perspective?

Renée has been gone almost 40 years.  Mrs. Abernathy just died.  Mr. Guinn died 10 days ago.  At least one of my schoolmates is dying of metastasised/terminal cancer.

Where is my sense of humour today?

It showed itself in the gift I made for and gave to Dr. Brown this morning, an electronic “Cat of the Year” calendar/video of our cat, Merlin, who has recovered from dental surgery, thanks to the professionalism and joy that Erin and her staff bring to their veterinary occupations.

Humour is an outlet for pain, among other expressions of relief from daily concerns, frustrations and ennui, including relief that pain/worry has ended.

Humour is what I pretend to believe that defines a separation of me from everything else (although I know I am a combination of everything that has passed through this dense set of states of energy called me in this moment).

Merlin ran out of the cage when we got home and looked for dry food to eat, the sign to me he was ready to get away from wet food after a week of healing sore gums.

Debbie and Neal plan to be grandparents in June.

Our oldest nephew marries in July.

Chestney graduates from high school soon.

Our days are numbered – we count up because we never know when to start the countdown.

Renée died at a point that I called 100% of my life up till then.  When I die, I will have lived 100% of my life.

Math.

I will have died somewhere.

Geography.

I will have lived with others in a specific time period.

History.

My name will be recorded in both official birth and death certificates.

Spelling.

I might get an obituary to go along with my birth announcement.

Grammar.

I contributed to sub/cultures during my life and learned from others’ sub/cultural clues.

Social studies.

That’s all I know.

All I need to know.

The rest is a joke waiting to be told from a curious perspective while walking down that Blue Highway I call my life.