Of Kennedys and Coffields

So I’m sitting in Borders, sipping a latte I got free with Borders Bonus Points, eating an oatmeal cookie that is bigger than my head, reading the New York Times. This is my reward for enduring six days of crazy in the condo while my painter and my handyman made magic in a frenzy of updating.

I bought the paper because I wanted to smear my fingers with ink, feel the texture of the reporting, as I read about Senator Edward M. Kennedy. His death is weighty news, and reading the stories on line simply is not satisfying. Besides, I was there for the Kennedy Years, and I’ve been feeling melancholy about the end of this particular era.

So I’m sitting in Borders, sipping a latte I got free with Borders Bonus Points, eating an oatmeal cookie that is bigger than my head, reading the New York Times, poring over every word in Mark Leibovich’s front-page article “After a Grim Diagnosis, Determined to Make a ‘Good Ending.’”

I start to cry.

The tears start at this paragraph: “Some patients given a fatal diagnosis succumb to bitterness and self-pity; others try to cram in everything they have always wanted to do. Mr. Kennedy wanted to project vigor and a determination to keep on going.”

A few paragraphs later, I read this, a comment from Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut: “At no point was he ever maudlin, ever ‘woe is me.’ I’m confident he had his moments – he wouldn’t be Irish if he didn’t – but in my presence, he always sounded more worried about me than he was about himself.”

I did not know Edward M. Kennedy, but I did know and love Philip M. Coffield, who also “wanted to project vigor and a determination to keep on going” and who “always sounded more worried about me than he was about himself.”

One day near the end of Philip’s life (he died in January 2006), I walked into his hospital room. “How are you feeling?” I asked. He said he was fine. Philip had AIDS, and he had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

“Have you seen any good movies,” Philip asked. I said no. Then this: “I’m having Kat and Larry over for dinner on New Year’s Eve, and I need some ideas for a good sauce for pork tenderloin. I have a recipe I like, but I want to try something different.”

Memories flooded through me, reminding me of lessons I’d learned from Philip. So I’m sitting in Borders, sipping a latte I got free with Borders Bonus Points, eating an oatmeal cookie that is bigger than my head, reading the New York Times, crying.

Then I remember the most important lesson I learned from Philip, obviously wisdom that Senator Kennedy also possessed: We all are dying, but only some of us admit it. Once you admit it, you can allow yourself to be overcome with emotional paralysis or you can get on with your life, projecting vigor and a determination to keep on going until the minute that your life is over.

“Every day is a gift.” Senator Kennedy began conversations in his last weeks with that mantra. “Don’t postpone joy.” That’s the motto on a bumper sticker I gave out one year at my Winter Solstice party. “The knobs for the kitchen cabinets just don’t matter,” I told a woman at Lowe’s last week as I looked for the least expensive package. “People in the world are starving, dying in wars, living out the saddest of human tragedies. Why would any of us get obsessed over kitchen cabinet knobs?”

No more whining about the process of ripping up life as I know it and heading West. No more freaking out about spending money here that I have saved for there. No more frittering away the gifts of today worrying about the uncertainties of tomorrow. Thanks, Senator Kennedy and sweet Philip, for the reminder.

And to the people at Borders – sorry about that.