SLIPPED AWAY

When I picked up yesterday’s MetroWest Daily News off my front porch, I expected to see a front page story about the gubernatorial debate.  Instead, I was struck by the front page story of the sudden death of the paper’s 44-year-old Sunday editor named Rich Pedroli.  I did not know Rich at all, but (no pun intended) you can’t help but be stopped dead in your tracks when you read that an active 44-year-old newspaperman, candlepin bowling champion, and lover of life drops dead.  When I was a teenager, that wouldn’t have even phased me.  At 52, it does.

I guess I have very juvenile taste in pop music, but I like Avril Lavigne’s music.  I’m probably her oldest fan.  (I’d never go to one of her concerts- everybody would be over twenty years younger and I’d feel ancient!)  On Avril’s “Under My Skin” album is a song entitled, “Slipped Away”.  It’s about her poignant feelings about the death of her grandfather.  Some of the lyrics:
“I miss you, miss you so bad,
I don’t forget you, oh, it’s so sad.
I hope you can hear me,
I remember it clearly;
The day you slipped away;
Was the day I found it won’t be the same....
I didn’t get around to kiss you goodbye on the hand,
I wish that I could see you again,
I know that I can’t...”

Then there's the haunting, intense and youthful refrain:
“NOW YOU’RE GONE NOW YOU’RE GONE  THERE YOU GO THERE YOU GO
SOMEWHERE I CAN’T BRING YOU BACK.
NOW YOU’RE GONE NOW YOU’RE GONE  THERE YOU GO THERE YOU GO
SOMEWHERE YOU’RE NOT COMING BACK.”

She may be only 22 or so, but those are feelings that many of us who are more than twice her age have certainly had.

On Tuesday of this week there was a phone message on my office answering machine. I was puzzled, because the female caller had an out-of-state  area code and said she wanted to talk to me because her father had passed away and she found my business card in his wallet.  I phoned her.  Yes, it was an out-of-state number, but she was in the Boston area.  Upon questioning her I realized I’d met her Dad at a car show this summer.  Many of you know I sell items of auto memorabilia at classic car shows.  Excited classic car owners often clamor for my business card.  This was one of many folks over the summer with whom I’d spoken, shaken hands, and handed over a card.  Maybe I sold him some collectables as well; I just can’t remember.  

This past Sunday I drove my daugher Rachel back to Westfield because the car she usually has out there needed to be put in for service in Framingham.  On the way we passed a terrible auto accident in Palmer.  I knew from glancing at the two decimated cars that no one could have survived. According to WRKO, there were two deaths in that accident.  There was literally a fourteen mile backup on the MassPike Eastbound from Palmer to Springfield.  This past weekend that overpass in Montreal collapsed and a couple of people died.

Am I trying to be morbid? Maybe.  I guess it’s the “line of work” I’m in but the thought of people slipping into eternity is a daily one with me.

For one thing, be careful what you say or don’t say to people.  You may never get a chance to rectify things.  For another thing, none of us is sure of tomorrow.  To use an old cliché, “Don’t be caught dead without...” (being right with God).

I’m sorry if this is a little too intense and too heavy- no I’m not!  It’s just what’s on my heart today.

“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”
(Hebrews 9:27)