How to hold up the world

By: Michael_T_Bucci

As Thanksgiving in America approaches, a time for reflection on the deeper meanings of friendship, family and colleagues who have come into our lives - some who we like and others we dislike - we remind ourselves that underneath the masks and roles we play on the great stage of life we are all human beings. We all need oxygen, sun, food and, most importantly, we need validation for who we are, what we believe and acknowledgment for help we give others.

As we give thanks to those who have given meaning to us, we shouldn’t ignore the perfect strangers. In that light, I thank Market Oracle and its editor, Nadeem Walayat, for providing its readers this website; for providing a platform for astute thinkers and analysts to showcase their expertise. Thank you.

On a personal note:

I was raised by three siblings from a family of nine in a deeply religious home. My mother would remark, “We don’t express our feelings but you, your face shows everything.”

When one sibling died a neighbor visited to comfort us. She turned to me and said, “Your aunt was very proud of you.”

I never knew. She never told me.

When a neighbor grew dangerously ill I insisted she go to the hospital and drove her.  When the attending physician arrived he turned to me, “You saved her life.”

I would never have known. Thank you for telling me.

When another neighbor collapsed on an apartment stairway, I coincidentally opened my door and found him. I called 911. His wife later said, “You saved his life.”

I would never have known. Thank you for telling me.

After every member of my immediate and family-at-large died along with their spouses and many of their children, I asked myself, “Did I ever tell any one of them how important they were to me?

No, I never did.

I tell them now. I write stories about them. The little people. The unsung. I hope they hear me in their Heaven.

On his death bed in 1892 Walt Whitman - still self-published, his Leaves Of Grass rebuked by newspapers and religionists as profane; his verse ridiculed as poetry; shunned by the elite writers of New York and Boston - reached into a box. “Take one out, someone ordered a book,” he instructed his aide. The newspapers chattered, “Is the old gray poet dead yet?” Then the crowds lined the streets to view his casket. The little people. The unsung. America did not tell him what they tell now: “You are one of our greatest poets, Walt.”

We hope he hears them in his Heaven.

After the Great Gatsby died, Nick Carraway, who had come to know the man under the mask, confessed remorse to Meyer Wolfsheim for never telling Jay Gatsy how much he appreciated his friendship. Wolfsheim replied: "Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead."

Let us learn to show our friendship, our appreciation, our love, our caring, our good tidings and wishes, our goodness, our encouragements, our praise, our support, our kindness, our charity ... NOW. Not never. Not tomorrow.
 
No matter the age, tomorrow might never come. It might not come for me, for you. It might not come for them.

For such words and acts, however small, little or unsung, hold up the world.

(c) 2021 Michael T. Bucci

Michael T. Bucci is a retired public relations executive from New Jersey currently residing in New England. He was a Commentary/Opinion writer for a New England regional newspaper.

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