On the Death of a Friend

A close friend - my best friend - crossed the bar on 9 November, 2009 at 2545 Hours. His name was Dan Smulewitz, an accomplished and brilliant Yale attorney, aged fifty-four.

And if there is an afterlife, with a pleasant valley where the flowers are always in bloom and the breezes fresh and warm and happiness abounds, Dan will be there, I am sure. One speaks of confessing one's sins before one dies, but Dan had no sins. He was a champion of the weak, the poor, and the powerless. The unjustly imprisoned because they couldn't defend themselves from crimes they did not commit because they could not speak english. For those brutalized by the police and for police officers brutalized by politicians.  A seeker of justice in a world where justice is not easily achieved. A man's man, in a world where the term has ceased to have meaning. In the months and then weeks before he passed, slowly becoming weaker, he would talk to me about the many things he would do "when he got better". And I would swallow with a knot in my throat, suppressing a tear as I spoke of such things. knowing in my heart that the life-force had determined this was not to be. That a limit of time is fixed for all, and if thou dost not use the time for clearing the clouds from thy mind, it will go and thou wilt go, never to return. So I stayed with him on the roller coaster ride that ends on that final slope that descends into the tunnel, as the cars slow, and the lights dim, and the ride is over. In the weeks before he passed Dan would constantly tell me about all the things he wished he had done. The places he wanted to visit. The stories he always wanted to write, but never seemed to find the time. And then...time ran out. He stared at the ceiling in his hospital bed, tubes in his arms with the burble of oxygen in the bubbler on the wall attached to his nasal cannula.

"Where did it all go", he asked, of nobody in  particular. There as a long pause.
"Where did it all go?", he said again, this time in a weaker voice.

Dan always wanted to write - to produce a novel - or become a journalist - but long hours in the saddle wearied him, and "there never seemed to be time", he told me. Yes. There "never seems to be the time." Dan never took vacations. Typical of many caught up in the ongoing process. He worked weekends, burning the midnight oil because there was a judge ready somewhere on Monday, and another human beings future depended on his eleventh-hour efforts. Yes, Dan had the so-called "indispensible man" syndrome, and yet, in a way, he was. That was the truth of the matter. Dan was a generous man. With his money, his time, and with his psychological support. For me, and many, many others. He was in great pain in the days before he died, for cancer is not kind, and in the end, death, in a way, became a friend. Dan deserved better, and he deserved more time on this earth, but the life-force cannot always be bargained with. I like to tell myself there is a purpose, but I wonder. We are as grains of sand on a beach, ants on an anthill, microscopic creatures on a small planet spinning in the void in an obscure solar system, one of billions of other systems. Yet we all believe we are so special, and death is not on out minds. We don't accepot the fact that at any moment we may leave the world of the living and cease to exist, and to live every minute of every hour or every day as if it were the last. Carpe diem. To sieze the day. To sieze the instant. To waken every morning and drag ourselves from bed and resolve to make the hours before us meaningful, for we are put here to do the work of God. Not to be angry with others, nor cause them pain or anguish. To recognize that nothing in life is worth the loss of a reputation. Nothing worth a malignant lie or defamation. Nothing worth the breaking of one's word. Nothing worth an unkindness. As for jewelry, fine clothing and material possessions.

These are just things.

To do good deeds and say kind words to others. To enjoy the salt breezes of the ocean, the smell of pine in the forest, the odor of flowers in bloom in the valleys. To respect others and the family of man. To fulfill our responsibilities as human beings. Yes Dan. You can be proud of your life. It was a good life. A moral life. A just life. You were a role model in a world that admires baseball players with room-temperature IQ's for how far they can hit a canvas covered ball while high on drugs.

And I was honored and priviliged to have been your friend.

Dan Smulewitcz
1955-2009
R.I.P.

"To live for today and to love for tomorrow if the wisdom of a fool - because tomorrow is promised to no one."