Remembrance Day (Part 1)

 Marcus Alden Meredith
October 29, 2025

Remembrance Day (Part 1)

In Memoriam,Years 3 and 14

My mother died from a stroke due to complications from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (scarred lungs, cause unknown) on October 30, 2011. Every year since, on the same day, I have walked the Golden Gate Bridge as a memorial to her passing. You see we had her ashes scattered just outside the Golden Gate and so I walk the bridge on that day to “have a talk with mom, letting her know what’s transpired since her passing.” When dad passed away 3 years ago, I decided to celebrate both of them on the same day. This trip San Francisco will mark the 14th anniversary. That’s still a bit difficult if not a bit surreal to wrap my mind around. And yet, I find it harder and harder to remember mom’s voice as the years pass. I still feel her wit and sensibilities when I do certain things but it’s like she’s slowly slipping away from me. And now I sense the same thing happening with dad’s memory even though I quite often think, “Oh, I should tell dad this. He’d love it!”

I don’t know how many of my readers are one’s who’ve experienced the loss of a parent yet. It’s an odd feeling for me to think that I’m the senior member of the family now. I still possess a stalwart energy and drive in my life… but I will admit that the more I examine it, the more I see just how much things have changed. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, ”No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” But what man am I then? Certainly not the same man that my father knew and definitely not the same man that my mother knew. It’s been 6 years since I left teaching and 3 since I decided to become a writer (though I suspect that the writer was always in me waiting to get out). The world that my mother knew, the one that she saw with a glint of hope for the future when she saw how we were progressing at the time, might be one that would disappoint her now. Maybe. Certainly in our politics she would be sorely disappointed if not down-right bereaved to see. Dad on the other had, he always had a fatalistic streak that went right down the middle of him that he never bothered to hide under a bushel. He had always thought that my retirement, though it was not planned out, was for a good reason especially since I had missed being a teacher still just 38 days before the world broke and COVID descended like some modern day Antonine plague. He’d just sit in from of the TV screen watching the news shows or reading the articles in the NY Times, always with a decidedly dark outlook saying, “I haven’t seen anything like this since the days of McCarthy!” Luckily for him he missed the re-election of Trump. I think if he hadn’t been dead yet, it’d have killed him.

But now I’m on the Cap Corridor train to the bay to see my friend Francis again, brake some bread with him in The City by The Bay, and do yearly check in with the forces of the Universe as I tell my parents how their orphaned son has been getting by. It’s a time that reminds me to reflect, to assess, to ask yourself, “OK, so what’s the plan for next year?” To be blindingly up-front with myself, I’ve been a bit of a solitary soul. The “new” house I moved into last year has been really nice to live in and the internet and remote services have made it way too easy to be a bit of a recluse. I mean, I can see all kinds of entertainment on my screens, get books, food, clothing, and other sundries and supplies delivered to my door step from almost anywhere in the world. It can be that I have too many conveniences that might keep me in the house. It’s time that I formulated a plan to “get the hell out there” and make new friends. That’s a difficult proposition for me, so something worthy of my time and efforts… I hope.

Listening to music by Ursine Vulpine as we careen down the tracks toward Richmond to link up with BART, it makes me start to go over a lot of the Stoic lessons I’ve been absorbing lately. I finished the first 3 of Ryan Holiday’s books in the Stoic Virtues Series and now I’m traveling with his 4th and last one, Wisdom Takes Work. I keep feeling the 2 challenge coins in my left pocket too as I walk around: Memento Mori and Pause and Reflect. And one of the things that may be most important that they keep me thinking of is to remember that you are just as flawed as your fellow human travelers on this planet; that they do what they do because most of the time they don’t know that they think with a set of Paleolithic emotions, are served by Medieval institutions, and possess technology that’s almost god-like. Thank you professor Wilson for that particular insight. I must always keep in mind that we are a species that survives because of cooperation and mutual aide. Remember to pause before doing or saying anything in response to what people do or say; they are really bad at reflecting about what they do on their own.

Tonight I’ll have sushi with my friend of over 50 years. We’ll get to talk about lots of things; we always do. And I will be the gracious guest with the streak of a ‘Black Knight’ that I always project. We’ll write an exquisite corpse or two, and reconnect again. But Memento Mori will be always in the back of my mind, and I will do my best to listen more and talk less and to be better at it. Wisdom takes work, the saying goes. I hope to keep working on mine for a very long time still to come.