Sylvia's Journal

Our neighbor Charlie died. He was 97 years old. He was born in Croatia in1923. I turned to Wikipedia to understand where Croatia was on the political map at that time and found a confusing description of allegiances and annexations and nationalist fervor that make it hard to say he was born in Yugoslavia. But what I was able to discern is that Charlie’s parents had been, for most of their life, citizens of the Ottoman empire. This is a good illustration of Elize’s Boulding phrase that the present spans 200 years: from 1920-2120 (the year the oldest person on earth was born in and the year some of those being born today will pass on).

This realization is a good antidote for the impatient all-or-nothing-thinking of the immediate now that dominates our media and, often, my own thoughts. Giving rise to panic and a lot of anxiety.

I don’t know how Charlie came to US, whether he came alone or with his parents, but what I do know is that he enlisted in the US army to fight the Germans in WWII. He was a gunner during the second world war, sitting precariously atop a fighter plane under a glass dome, shooting at German planes. It’s a miracle that he survived this profession with its high death toll. He lived another 75 years after that, first as the neighbor of my in-laws, and then being our neighbor as we moved into Axel’s parental home.

Charlie and Axel have known each other for 58 years. It was a sad day for Axel and Charlie’s current housemate and his brother, old men themselves. They valiantly cared for Charlie in his last precarious months, acting like home health aides, calling 911 more than once over the last 6 months.

Death bring with it a flood of memories. It was Charlie and his fellow engineers who lived next door and exposed Axel to strong liquor and the manly companionship that he missed as an only child. They’d go fishing in their aluminum boat with much alcohol on board.

Charlie was a survivor. What finally did him in was a double pneumonia, sometimes referred to as ‘the old man’s friend.’ I like to think he is now in a better place, maybe in the New York section of heaven where he is undoubtedly running in RBG. I wonder what they’d be talking about. May be I can guess.