In Loving Memory - May 23 2026

 

In Loving Memory

May 23 2026

It’s an average day

at a mediocre job

in a good enough life.

Who achieves greatness, after all?

Shouldn’t we be grateful enough

to simply muddle through,

knowing

that it could always be worse?

Is the accident of birth to blame,

of is it a failure

of moral agency

and personal choice?

And how much does luck play

in who wins and loses?

Because maybe self-made men aren’t so self-made;

they simply deceive themselves 

by taking credit,

self-righteously preaching

about the work ethic

and getting what you deserve.

Or is greatness over-rated

from the get-go?

Celebrity certainly is.

Great wealth seems desirable,

but according to the tabloids

they’re no happier than us.

While politicians

are just crabs in a bucket,

scrambling over each other

to get to the top;

crustaceans with ambition

and the biggest claws.

While athletes can be great

until they’re not,

and scientists toil away

and do great things,

but are too immersed

in their consequential work 

to ever preen or swagger.

I push paper,

watch the clock,

look busy

when the boss passes by.

My accomplishments are modest

to say the most.

But I go home

to my average kids and loving wife

and feel good.

The dog is thrilled

the moment I enter,

wagging her tail and jumping up

(I admit, badly trained

but easy to love).

The bungalow’s perfectly fine

if a little run down,

and the food on the table

is good enough

to get up satisfied;

could a rich man eat much more?

The bills get paid and chores get done,

and life goes on   . . . until it doesn’t.

The ordinary lives of ordinary people.

Not what we read about in books.

Not how we imagined it would be

back in middle school.

Not even when we were cut

from the junior wrestling team,

or were sure that our date

at the school dance

felt she was settling.

After all, we also felt that way;

disappointment

beginning early 

and learned pretty well.

Nevertheless, our epitaph will say

in loving memory

and that will be great enough;

to have loved, and be loved

and remembered for awhile.

It felt rather out of the blue when the first three lines came together. But I thought it was a promising beginning, and let the words keep coming. Only when I finished did I piece together where in the world this came from. 

First, there was a New Yorker piece I had just read, written by Joshua Rothman and with the self-explanatory title: WHY IS IT SO HARD TO BE ORDINARY? (It’s what most of us are, most of the time. Shouldn’t it be enough?) . . . Yes, in retrospect, hardly a mystery!

Second, there was a personal essay in the Globe I’d read much earlier. It was about walking in cemeteries, and the author commented on some of the inscriptions she encountered. It popped out of my subconscious at just the right time to give me what must seem like the perfectly premeditated ending to this poem. 

When considering this idea of averageness, I can’t help but think of Garrison Keillor’s take on statistical impossibility when he describes his fictional home town of Lake Wobegon with his familiar catchphrase: “Where all the women are strong  …the men are good-looking  …and the children are above average.”