I’m 50 years old and a diabetic. I smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and eat food I shouldn’t. For whatever reason, all this upsets my doctor. She says I’m killing myself.
My argument is yes, I have diabetes and I have to live with it — but the illness has to live with me, too. I’ve made some modifications. I take my insulin, and I’m mostly a good guy about it. But hell, I’m gonna live my life and have some fun. My doctor just shakes her head.
Having said that, I woke up a few mornings ago and started thinking about my mortality.
Surely everything I’m doing to myself will not enable me to live to be 100 and maybe I should start thinking about making plans for “the end.”
Perhaps most people would start thinking about a will or start to get financial affairs in order. I’m not like most people. On that morning, I became obsessed with what my tombstone will be like.
I don’t want it to say my name BORN “whenever”, DIED “whatever.” If I’m in the ground, you already know I’m dead. That’s boring. I want my tombstone to be thought provoking and I want people looking at it to answer some questions for me that I haven’t been able to figure out in my lifetime. You never know; maybe I’ll be able to listen.
Yes, it will be a series of questions something like:
· Why did I buy bananas at the grocery store every week, just to watch them rot in the fruit bowl?
· Why was I the only person in the world who didn’t love Lucy?
· Being a self proclaimed non-racist, why did I have so few black friends?
· I know I was pretty much a screw-up in my adult life, but look at my beautiful daughter and great son. Golly, did I do something right?
· Is it better to be dead in the ground than be forced to eat a cheese coney from Skyline?
· How come Mullane’s closed?
· For a person who kept saying he would never marry again, why did I keep hoping to find someone I could really care for and be with?
· Why the hell is that godawful Cin Weekly still in publication?
· Why does sex fuck up friendships?
· How come Republicans never learn from their mistakes?
· Why couldn’t I go to downtown Cincinnati and see a movie?
· Why was popcorn so popular but we never bothered to pop other vegetables? Is it possible to pop a pea? A butter bean?
· Why did the one person I love more than anybody in the world, my grandfather, have to die on my 12th birthday?
· Would life have been less funny without Woody Allen?
· Why did so many people in my life think I was gruff and why did I pretend to give a rat’s ass?
· Why in this world of all things good and sacred would Bonnie Franklin, a so-called actress, be given her own television sitcom? And don’t get me started on Dick Van Patten or Dick Clark.
· How come my parents never told me that they loved me and why did it take me so long to tell my own kids?
· Why the hell are you in the middle of a graveyard reading this stuff? Go live your life before it’s too late. Jesus, look at me I’m dead!
Either my tombstone will be small with real tiny print, or it will be 12 feet high. I haven’t decided yet.
This article appears in Oct 27 – Nov 2, 2004.