Thoughts on a passing

He was wrapped in a white sheet at the hospital last night.

He's dead. He was a grand, troubled figure on a grand, troubled stage and now he's dead. Last night he was in a cooler at 42 degrees. The make-up is gone, the wigs are gone and he's a 50 year old corpse who looks much older. This morning, men will open up his chest and head and take out the all-too-human things that made him run. In his head they won't see the musical genius, in his chest they won't see a soul - just more tissue.

Nothing that made him "him" matters anymore. He'll never walk again, never speak again, never smile again and never laugh again. All the good and all the bad washed away yesterday - out of everyone's control.

He was wrapped in a white sheet at the hospital last night.

That white sheet was made months ago. Years ago. He never thought about that sheet as it was being made. He just lived a life that, to so many, was larger-than-life. But he had a date with that sheet.

When he went to bed on that last night, he didn't know how close that sheet was.

The sheet makes him human, makes him simple, makes him us. It's the equalizer.

And what strikes me is that we all have a date with a white sheet. Is mine made yet? Is it sitting on a shelf somewhere?

There are lessons to be learned, and they're not all obvious. We all have our own fields to tend to, so maybe we should get out of his, because nothing grows there anymore.

And in time, it will be said about us, too.

He's in his white sheet now.

When is mine?