"Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody." - The Catcher in the Rye

WARNING: SERIOUS BLOG AHEAD.

This week marked the end of an era. A friend of my family's passed away late Tuesday night ~ Mr. K. He was a great man. He was in his 90's and was one of the very few honest men left in a crooked town. Ironically, he was also one of the best lawyers my small hometown had ever seen.

He enjoyed a strong cocktail and classical music on a Sunday afternoon. He read Dante's "Inferno"...in Latin. He liked feeding the stray cats living in his backyard. He never raised his voice and he never cursed, and I mean never. No doubt, he was one of the last "true gentlemen" left in our warped society.

JD Salinger also passed away this week. His most famous book was "The Catcher in the Rye," written for adults but adored by angst-ridden teenagers. He became reclusive in the 1960's and the more he shunned fame, the more it banged down his door. He was 91 and full of piss and vinegar.

Two completely different people with two completely different ways of going through life. One marched along strong and silent; the other tiptoed, but managed to bring the house crashing down around him anyway. I'm sure they will have much to talk about where they are.

Given how full their lives were, it's hard to actually feel sadness for them. The more I think about it, I'm not sad for them...I'm sad for us, the world they've left behind. We're the ones who have lost great people, great minds, great ideas. And it's an even bigger shame that there are people out there who don't even know what we've lost.

I think the craziest thing about it all is the theory behind it. The opposite of Death isn't Life. The opposite of Death is Birth. "Life" has no opposite. So then where does that leave the rest of us?

All I know is, before drinking my next cocktail I will pay silent tribute to those few great men who still take their hats off indoors, open car doors for women, take pride in their work and who respect themselves enough to have no regrets.

What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 1