Into Each Life….

The puddle is fine.  It is not the one that ruined Dr. Foster's day.  Yet, if you cling to your beauteous ornaments and love your reflection in the mirror or even in the afore mentioned puddle, then you may not roll well with the punches thrown by Mother Nature's right cross in the form of angels crying on your parade.  Simply, I was in a rare way: something approaching sartorial splendor with my Brooks Brothers white and blue pinstriped shirt and its white collar and cuffs with 1956 Thunderbird faux gold cufflinks and especially, my shiny rarely used burgundy beef roll penny loafers upon my feet.  Enroute to my late great Uncle Frank's daughter's home for a reunion after nearly forty years, I decided to first visit Frank's nearby grave within a street level cemetery, simple and a bit forlorn surrounded by a rusting chain link fence in a little suburban neighborhood on Staten Island.  My unchecked self-satisfaction for making this stop was dampened quite literally by the less than manicured grass between the headstones that retained oh so much of the very recent rain that had stopped but that I had smugly and foolishly assumed signaled a green light toward a dry path to Frank's burial site.  Care and forethought, constant adjustments and due dilligence: these are qualities for successful living or for negotiating one's way through life, whether it's preserving one's wardrobe or appearance or safely getting a man to the moon and back.  Is it all vanity as the bible teaches?  Or is success nothing to apologize for?  Is triumphing over nature's indifference to our artificial world of clothing and other worldly possessions or ambitions to conquer space, victories worth the effort?  If ruining one's shoes somehow miraculously lessened Frank's time in purgatory (assuming one could know that it existed or that he was doing "time" there) would one slog through massively flooded streets to more quickly speed him on his way to St. Peter's gates?  The optimist entreats:  you can be well dressed AND help Uncle Frank's soul.  They're not mutually exclusive goals. Yet somewhow, the wet footwear seemed to remind me that there is a cost for most everything we do, especially when it involves loving someone or their memory.  Visiting his grave ought not to be an occasion exclusively for the sake of me feeling better about myself.  Yet, loving does anticipate, inevitably or at least secretly, a reward, not to be interminably denied. Instant gratification is rarely cost free.  Even a spiritually shallow reason like the one mentioned above, requires some planning.  Donning galoshes would have likely avoided any distraction from praying for and remembering Uncle Frank.  But, would it had helped me to better commune with him or should the approach, literally, to his resting place have been more imitative of those who crawl or move forward on their knees to Lourdes or Fatima? Love hurts, but where does true sacrifice end and masochism begin?  I guess there are simpler ways to view matters and that Uncle Frank would have been (or is) just happy that I came to visit.  I hope we meet again.