And so it begins

Updating my post from the other week, it is with sadness that I must inform our readers that North of 50 will not return to these pages. His time is near.

Life, even in its fullest sadly ends the same for all of us. With that often comes unfulfilled expectations of how life progresses. Only the oldest should succumb to the ravages of age and disease. That is the way of things. That is the way it should be, although life often has its own vision of what the future holds. It is natural that our grandparents and then our parents are the first that we must grieve for. With the extent of my family it was not uncommon for me to attend a funeral nearly every year. Even as a child death was a function of life.

As brothers growing up we had our share of fights and brouhahas. As children we shared many things including our bedroom. Believe me, you get to know a lot about someone when you grow up sleeping in the same room. But what we really shared was a bond that has stood the test of time. We bonded as family, we bonded as brothers. He is one of the three or four closest persons to me in my lifetime, outside of my parents.

His is a voice of learned experience. His knowledge spans a vastness many simply can not understand, except of course, if it involved anything to do with science.Disease is a tragedy that ravages the body, but what it steals is a mind. A mind is what we are, what we know, what we become. Science fiction has many stories of saving the mind, not the body. One's essence is the mind, one's essence is the soul. I think to some extent they are inter-related.

I know some do not believe in an afterlife, or God, or a god. I feel sorry for them. As I have grown up Catholic, it is part of my belief system. Nuns have a funny way of convincing little children of things like that. As an educated (or perhaps enlightened) adult, I have come to believe whatever we choose to call heaven, it is there. If it wasn't, what's the point?

I will leave North's moniker up on this blog as he is part of its history. He is part of me.