Never, never, never, never, never

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I made contact with an old friend recently, and she informed me that she intends to climb Kilimanjaro in 2013. Imagine!

 

 

My first thought was: I’d love to do that.

 

 

My second thought was: I’ll never do that.

 

 

And, for the first time in my life, the word “never” suddenly took on a new and terrible meaning.

 

 

I will never use up those stupid greeting cards I bought six years ago.

 

 

I will never see Timbuktu (though I certainly had the chance a long time ago), or Nepal, or Kazakhstan.

 

 

I will never conduct a real symphony orchestra, or win a Nobel Prize, or even a Pulitzer Prize.

 

 

Never, never, never.

 

 

Awful.

 

 

That’s from “King Lear,” isn’t it? The lines that Lear speaks, holding the dead Cordelia in his arms:

 

 

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never.

 

 

 

I will never return to the house I grew up in; it’s been sold and belongs to strangers now, who have almost certainly changed it beyond recognition.

 

 

I can never revisit my old elementary school; it  burned down a few years ago.

 

 

I will never speak to my late mother or father again, nor to my late sister Darlene from whom I was estranged at the time of her death, nor to my late sister Susan of whom I was very fond.

 

 

Never, never, never, never, never.

 

 

When we’re young, we are full of hope.

 

 

Later, we come to terrible realizations.

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