Acceptance
And them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye
Singin' this'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die
From American Pie, by Don McLean
Mitch Robbins: Hi Curly. Killed anyone today?
Curly: The day ain't over yet...
Dialogue from City Slickers
It was all so clear, as I struggled to get back to sleep this morning. In these times, thoughts of mortality abound. The eerie 9/11 image of the inverted falling man has made mortality immediate. We are confronted daily with previously unthinkable agents of demise: anthrax, chemicals, gases, snipers, and now the spontaneous eruption of a disease that no one understands.
We respond with fear and avoidance. We buy surgical masks, duct tape, guns, and are inoculated for a disease that ceased existing over 50 years ago in our country. We avoid the natural stages presented to us by Elisabeth Kübler Ross and scurry from one false hope to another, egged on by charlatans and opportunists. We have been conditioned to accept quick fixes and easy answers instead of working through the difficult and essential soul-searching.
Now would be a good time to read the oft-maligned Malaise Speech instead.
My thoughts were my own and would be useless to share even if I could remember them, but at the end the image of the 9/11 Falling Man popped into my mind along with the word acceptance. The picture is troubling because it is at once horrifying and serene. I imagined the beginning of a normal day; shower, coffee, commute. Then an earth-shaking crash, curiosity, panic, the need to flee, but all escapes are blocked. Death by falling is suddenly bearable, death by fire is not, and in quick succession denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance occur in minutes instead of the months normally associated with thanatology. He was one hell of a man to do that.
So, every day I begin with the thought, this could be the day. It is not morbid, it’s the way things are. Soldiers are used to it. Each day, when I get home, I relax with the thought well, this day wasn’t. Then Curly says, “The day ain’t over yet.” I laugh and thank him for reminding me that tomorrow is another day.
Today was the day for Michael Kelly. I never cared for his politics but he was a gifted writer. In a way, this is his war. He helped promote it and when it came he went back to his roots and went over there to cover it as a reporter. He didn’t have to do that. He was a successful editor who could have stayed behind his desk and engaged in literary polemics, but he left his wife and children and went to see firsthand the battle he so strongly advocated. From first reports, his death was accidental, not the result of hostile action. That might have happened on The Beltway, so perfect irony was eluded.
When I first heard it, I thought of the “ill wind that blows no man to good,” but thought better than to post that with the news. I thought back to my previous post about supporting our embedded reporters and was relieved to see the time stamp predates the news, lest it be taken the wrong way. In death, I have to respect Michael Kelly. He fought for what he believed and when it happened he went on location to report on it first hand. He was a better man than I and certainly better than the other self-appointed cadre who speak of “casualties” as an abstraction and then go about their daily routine. Michael Kelly put his ass on the line and like many others who have done the same, paid the ultimate price. My heart goes out to his family.
6:58:12 PM 
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