Notes for his obituary

He was a good man: he sent checks every December to Save the Children.

He met an old friend wearing a suit he gave to Goodwill. He wanted to compliment him on his 
taste but said nothing.

He wondered if pain was constant, was it pain or just the way we live? 

He flossed so hard that when he rinsed his mouth, the water in the basin trickled pink. He liked 
the taste of his own blood. 

All that he remembered was only a small part of the life he had lived. 

When he was fifty, he dreamed of Sonya Henne. He was sure he was the only person out of the 
billions that inhabited the planet that dreamed of her that night.

He was not a recluse he said, he just sheltered in place.

He believed that it was harder for a man to be loved than to love.

If on the first date a woman didn’t use the word “discombobulate” or asked what it meant if he 
used it, he didn’t ask her out again.

He married his second wife because she knew what arugula was, could pronounce it properly, 
and knew in some countries they called it rocket lettuce.

Every morning he read the obituaries to see if her husband had died. Her husband had led a life 
that would make the New York Times. Ever since his high school reunion, he went straight from 
the front-page headlines to the obits. He used to read the sports section first, but now it was all 
about money, contracts, and drugs. There wasn’t much about good fielding and perfect bunts – 
nobody knew how to bunt anymore. They all swung for the fences, even the light hitting second 
basemen batting eighth.

He asked his son what was his contingency plan? Everybody needs a contingency plan, he said.

When he was a boy he kept his dreams in a cigar box with his baseball cards. His mother threw 
away the box when his parents moved to Florida his sophomore year in college. He was sure he 
had a rookie Roger Maris card.

He was somebody he never knew.