Last Day
What if this was your last day? How would you live it?
I’ve been thinking about this,
because today, 2020 May 10, marks the 50th anniversary of my Daddy’s
death. So yesterday would’ve marked his
last full day on earth, 1970 May 09. He
was 31, married, and had three children: a 6-year old boy, a 4.5-year old girl,
and another son in the womb soon to be born (me). I know some details about that last day,
which I recounted in my poem from Mother’s Day 10 years ago: http://comicsand.blogspot.com/2010/05/day-to-remember.html.
And I asked Mama to write up a character portrait of Daddy, which is just
wonderful and will be shared sometime today, if it hasn’t already. But while,
thinking about Daddy’s final day of life is the inspiration of this message, it
not really about him as you’ll see.
Last Day
What if this was your last day? Would you accept it?
Just thinking about those two words
automatically invokes images from one of my favorite movies, Logan’s Run from 1976. In that film, in order to keep the population
under control living in the sealed domed city, the citizens voluntarily went to
Carousel on their 30th birthday.
There they would don hockey/skull masks and white-body suits decorated
with red flames, stand in a circle, and raise their blinking red
life clocks (crystal palm flowers) to “Identify”. Then they would float up into the chamber
until they exploded in a fiery display while their fellow citizen onlookers
shouted, “Renew, Renew!” Why would
anyone do this? Well, they were taught
to believe they would be reborn and just get to live another 30 years of fun
and pleasure. Those that didn’t believe
the messaged lie realized that the people were actually going to their
deaths. So in order to live longer than
30, they attempted to flee the city seals, becoming Runners. The City could not tolerate that sort of independent
thinking, which would upset their control and delicate balance, so they
enlisted Sandmen to terminate the runners. Logan was a Sandman, but later
became a runner. Anyway, it’s a great
movie from story to music to costumes, but again not the real subject.
