Life seems lonelier these days, depleted by a swift rush of time that thins the ranks of old friends and leaves me wondering where all of my yesterdays have gone.
I write down names of colleagues and close friends lost not to war but to old age or illnesses; men like Belcher, Levitt, Grant, Locke, Reck and Reed. Cigarettes and martinis took them from an era of excess, but so did just growing old and too tired to care.
How and why did I alone remain strong and alive through a series of savage ailments that toppled others? I think about that at age 85 still working and wondering how far new words and new stories will take me until at last I come to the end of anything I ever had to say.
Where would I be when I ran out of metaphors?
I did not intend for today to be dedicated to death, but only to pay homage to those who have impacted on my life in different ways. The most recent was John Wiebusch. I received word a few days ago from Susan, his wife of 46 years that John had died at his home in Topanga on a hilltop not far from where we live. He was 74.
Sports writer, humorist and closet intellectual deeply involved with his world, his nation and his neighborhood, he worked for the Minneapolis Tribune and the L.A. Times before joining the National Football League for 33 years, retiring as writer and editor in 2003.
I met him when he discovered I too lived in Topanga and he tracked me down. He suffered even then from a rare hereditary disease that had already killed his brother. A big man, his chin became permanently pressed against his chest. He was confined to a wheelchair but that didn't stop him. He managed to travel with his wife as a care-taker, who rarely if ever complained.
We dined outdoors at Abuelitas, a Mexican restaurant, on a tree-shaded deck next to Topanga Creek; he managed a beer along with the entrée but only picked at his dinner. "This would be a great restaurant," he once remarked, "if it weren't for the food." He spoke in a tempo so rapid, and I am so hearing impaired, that sometimes communications were difficult. "I can't talk and you can't hear," he mused. "What a hell of a pair."
Our friendship deepened regardless and we met often, despite his growing inability to function. I miss him every day of the week, one more friend marching off to, I hope, a less painful place. Adios, John. Requiescat in pace.