There comes a time when you start to notice that all the people you had always assumed would “be there” start to “not be there”. This has a few effects once the shock passes over both the expected and unexpected deaths of friends and relatives that have been a part of your life for decades. You will hear a song on see something interesting and without thinking pick up the phone to call, only they aren’t there to call. Back in March was my 81st birthday and recently I took an inventory of people who knew me before I was Officially an adult who could tell you tales. It is getting to be a very short list.
You all know that genealogy is a past time of mine, so most of the cousins are still here: Nay’s children (Arthur, Ruth Shirley and Edward all departed), Eva’s girls: Helen Jeannette , Frances, Beverly, and Donna Ruth (Helen Jeannette has departed and we lost Beverly just this year); Helen’s girl Wanda; Mary Ellen’s little girl (That’s me), Margarette contributed Duane who we lost this year, and Thelma added Claudia Jo. Poor Duane was the only boy among the girls. We are all in our late 70s & early 80s now so the time to shuffle off the mortal coil is approaching even in a family that tends to last well into the description of “elderly”.
Sestina of the Tramp-Royal
by Rudyard Kipling 1896
Speakin’ in general, I ’ave tried ’em all—
The ’appy roads that take you o’er the world.
Speakin’ in general, I ’ave found them good
For such as cannot use one bed too long,
But must get ’ence, the same as I ’ave done,
An’ go observin’ matters till they die.
What do it matter where or ’ow we die,
So long as we’ve our ’ealth to watch it all—
The different ways that different things are done,
An’ men an’ women lovin’ in this world;
Takin’ our chances as they come along,
An’ when they ain’t, pretendin’ they are good?
In cash or credit—no, it aren’t no good;
You ’ave to ’ave the ’abit or you’d die,
Unless you lived your life but one day long,
Nor didn’t prophesy nor fret at all,
But drew your tucker some’ow from the world,
An’ never bothered what you might ha’ done.
But, Gawd, what things are they I ’aven’t done?
I’ve turned my ’and to most, an’ turned it good,
In various situations round the world—
For ’im that doth not work must surely die;
But that’s no reason man should labour all
’Is life on one same shift—life’s none so long.
Therefore, from job to job I’ve moved along.
Pay couldn’t ’old me when my time was done,
For something in my ’ead upset it all,
Till I ’ad dropped whatever ’twas for good,
An’, out at sea, be’eld the dock-lights die,
An’ met my mate—the wind that tramps the world!
It’s like a book, I think, this bloomin’ world,
Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you’re readin’ done,
An’ turn another—likely not so good;
But what you’re after is to turn ’em all.
Gawd bless this world! Whatever she ’ath done—
Excep’ when awful long I’ve found it good.
So write, before I die, ‘”E liked it all!’
It’s Getting Crowded Out There. I arrived on the scene about halfway between the first two numbers below. Given family history, I might actually make it to the last number.
Year Total world population
1940 2,299,541,939
1950 2,556,000,053
1960 3,039,451,023
1970 3,706,618,163
1980 4,453,831,714
1990 5,278,639,789
2000 6,082,966,429
2010 6,848,932,929
2020 7,584,821,144
2030 8,246,619,341
2040 8,850,045,889
