Ministerial Musings: Remembering Phil

Once in a while, a name washes upon our shore: one not heard in eons. With those waves come a flood of emotions — emotions no storm warning could forecast.

Facebook and other social media have enabled people to reconnect with friends from yesterday. Recently, a childhood friend I have not seen in about eighteen years found me in cyberspace. It was great to reminisce with Darrell on-line. We recalled growing up on the North Shore of Boston — how we were street hockey fanatics and aspiring audiophiles.

In the course of one of our conversations, Darrell asked, “Have you heard about Phil?” I knew right away that he was referring to a good, mutual friend of ours from childhood: Phil Paluzzi.

“No, what about him?” I asked.

“He died three days ago,” Darrell told me. When I asked what happened Darrell told me that Phil died from some disease he (Darrell) could not pronounce. I went on-line and read his obituary. Phil died after a long struggle with scleroderma.

I spent the rest of that afternoon in a funk. I made contact with other friends who had seen Phil more recently; they said he did not look good. He had lost a great deal of weight, he looked gaunt, and he seemed somewhat aloof.

Hearing about the death of a childhood friend — who died at the young age of 41 — brings one’s own mortality into bold relief. My friends could have been talking about me on Facebook. It could easily have been me who passed away after battling a disease that was difficult to pronounce. All it takes is the death of one’s peers (especially one you remember as a child) to put your own mortality into focus.

It is true. We are only here for a short time. To quote Pink Floyd, “Life is a short, warm moment and death is a long cold rest. You get your chance to try in the twinkling of an eye: eighty years, with luck, or even less.” Morbid? Maybe. But true? Indeed.

So what’s the solution, since no one gets out of here alive?

As simple as it seems, we can fret about it or we can do something. In terms of the latter, I recall the words of Henry David Thoreau, who, in his pièce de résistance Walden, encouraged his readers to live life to the fullest, to suck the marrow out of life. We can see beauty and purpose all around us, rather than dwelling on the inevitable.

I once heard a story about a monk who was walking through the woods. All of a sudden a ferocious tiger jumps out of nowhere and starts chasing him. The monk runs to the edge of a cliff and realizes that he has nowhere to go.

He notices that there is a branch hanging just over the cliff, so he grabs hold of it and dangles just beneath the tiger who prances back and forth and sniffs — waiting for the monk to surface so he can devour him.

The monk looks down and notices that there is another tiger below, who is waiting for him to let go of the branch so that he can eat him instead.

The monk then looks to the side and notices another branch with a single, ripe, beautiful, red strawberry on it. He smiles, plucks the strawberry, eats it, and, delighted, declares that it is quite delicious.

We can go through life worrying about when it’s our turn. Might we get sick? Will we have an accident? Will we be old?  Young? Alone? Surrounded by family members and friends? We can live or we can die. The choice is ours.

George Santayana put it best: “There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.” I choose the interval, in honor of my friend.

For Phillip J. Paluzzi

October 4, 1969 – September 10, 2011

John Tamilio III is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, an accomplished guitarist, and a nationally published author. His first book of poetry, Blind Painting, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Letters in 2003. He and his wife, Susan, live in Lakewood, Ohio with their children: Sarah, “Jay” (John IV), and Thomas.