Seasons

   The current ski season at our local area is coming to a close after a long and high quality duration.   Each year and each type of ski area presents a unique run of ski days.   The times of beginnings and the times of endings run the gamut depending on the weather and many other factors.   As this ski season comes to a close I am reflecting that the variation in length and type of ski seasons at various locations can be a metaphor for the length and character of the arc of our lives.   Likely this thought is provoked by the recent deaths of several of my college roomies, classmates and friends.
    Yesterday I attended a magnificent memorial service for one of my college roommates and long friend and colleague Dave Ludington.  I first me Dave when we were transfer sophomores at Cornell in 1953.   We both came from fruit farms in upstate New York and had similar hard working lives of that era.   We became close friends, double dated sorority sisters, and shared our trials and tribulations as well as rooming together for a couple of years.   Over the years, however, we progressed our more separate ways.    Dave navigated his life arc with seemingly few difficulties and no tragedies of family or other areas of life that we know of.  His demise from a brain tumor at age 76 seems premature for such a wonderful man and friend.   However, we do not know the length of the season of our life and just like a ski season our life season also will come to an end.  
     Obviously geezerhood is a period of both enjoying our geezer friends and mourning those who pass on.   Each of us has a unique story that is a thread in the tapestry of humanity.   Our thread may be straight, colorful, clean and long.  Or it may be twisted, short and stained or something in between.   Whatever our thread is in the tapestry of life, it is nice to think that we somehow contribute to the over all beauty of the final product.   Wouldn't humanity be dull if we were all the same?   Here's to celebrating our uniqueness and our own special destiny of our life season with our own beginning, life arc and end.