"When you can't breath nothing else matters"
~Ralph Brooks
Save for a few minutes emailing earlier I haven't been online all day. I wasn't online much of yesterday or the day before either come to think of it. Lots going on lately so save for some quick checks of the email, skimming news headlines a couple times or a few minutes glancing at Facebook I've been unplugged from it all. It's pushing midnight now I finally gave up trying to find that thing that I know is here somewhere. I dug through all the boxes in the closet. Good gosh the things I keep! I didn't find it but I came across some old letters from Ralph and saw the above.
He told me that, or wrote it to me rather, quite a bit. I never met Ralph but we got to know each other pretty well over the four or five years that we corresponded snail mail then email. Yeah snail mail. I'm that old! He was a mentor of sorts for me shortly after I first moved to Nippon in '98. Too long of a story to tell how we connected; I'll just say I'm damned grateful we did. It's been over 15 years now since he passed away. I still remember feeling the loss upon opening an email from him only to read his wife's words that he'd moved on. He'd been confined to his NY apartment with COPD for some years, thus he knew well the things that matter when you can't breath. He assured me they amounted to nothing.
He was a retired newspaper reporter who'd been around the world enough and experienced enough more with his eyes open to truth to have gained a keen life perspective. One of the few times we spoke on the phone was shortly after 9/11. I remembered him writing that he lived just a couple miles from the World Trade Center so I called to see how he was doing. I was worried about him after reading of all the dust and pollution in the air around ground zero. As always he said he was fine and shifted the focus from himself to me. He advised not to get caught up in the panic. This too shall pass he said. He had a lot of great advice like that. Most of it borrowed just as I catch myself borrowing from him all these years later. He's one of the best guys I never met.
Anyhow, I know that thing I'm looking for has gotta be here somewhere dang it! It's even closer to midnight now so I'll put off digging through the other boxes till tomorrow. For now I'll head off to the futon with the reminder fresh in my mind...
