NCIS is one of my favorite shows that, in between the main bang-bang shoot-em-up action, a small personal drama unfolds between one or more the main characters, often centering on their life before becoming who they are now.
Last season, Gibbs was visited by his father’s brother, a WWII vet who dealt with his demons by leaving a trail of sorrow in his wake. But he was the last man alive of a group of 12 veterans who wore identical ID bracelets in token of their friendship in service. Their pact was that the last man standing would gather the bracelets to be buried with him so they would always be together. Feeling unworthy to wear it, he had thrown his away years ago.
The end of the show saw Gibbs having made him a replacement bracelet, and promising to bury him with his brother, Gibbs father, when the time came. His uncle turned the bracelets over to Gibbs, and asked him to stand as surrogate “a better man than I.”
The sadness of the scene was expected, but for me there was an extra layer.
I am an atheist, well – perhaps more agnostic in that I hope there is a life spirit of some sort that endures after our death. Not an angel, of course, but the finality of death is as hard to reconcile as the fact that space has no roof (because above the roof is….) And if we do endure in some way, perhaps it is, as many say, in the hearts and memories of others.
Who is there to mourn me? The few cousins scattered across the country are seldom seen and close enough to my own age that we could all go together. My daughter and grandchildren abandoned me, absolving herself of that absurdity because her therapist told her it was ok to shed herself of people she thought hadn’t met her expectations. My friends, like my cousins, are close to, or older, than myself. I am not famous for art, poetry, drama, music or novels, so I will not live on like Carol Channing, Harper Lee or Maya Angelou. There will be no obituary in cyberspace as I am opting for cremation, nor a tombstone to find in Find A Grave by future genealogists.
Perhaps I should put up my own Family Tree in Ancestry.com Just to leave a mark in this world for someone, somewhere, sometime in the future.
I will miss you very much! More than you know.