Thank you, my kind hearted friends!
Your words find their mark and I feel better for having read them.
I was just thinking last night how much life is like a Ray Bradbury story I read as a teenager.
It is about a couple on vacation in Europe. The husband George Smith, is crazy about the paintings of Pablo Picasso.
One evening, the man spots his hero at the edge of the sea.
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I'll let Bradbury set it up for you:
"He began to draw incredible figures along the sand.
He sketched one figure and then moved over and, still looking down, completely focused on his work now, drew a second and a third figure, and after that a fourth and a fifth and a sixth.
George Smith, printing the shoreline with his feet, gazed here, gazed there, and then saw the man ahead. George Smith, drawing nearer, saw that the man, deeply tanned, was bending down. Nearer yet, and it was obvious what the man was up to, George Smith chuckled. Of course . . . Alone on the beach this man how old? Sixty-five? Seventy? -- was scribbling and doodling away. How the sand flew! How the wild portraits flung themselves out there on the shore! How ...
George Smith took one more step and stopped, very still.
The stranger was drawing and drawing and did not seem to sense that anyone stood immediately behind him and the world of his drawings in the sand. By now he was so deeply enchanted with his solitudinous creation that depth bombs set off in the bay might not have stopped his flying hand nor turned him round..."
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The end of the story (If you haven't read it--don't let me spoil it)
is what reminds me of Johnny and our lifelong friendship. The impermanence of a masterpiece such as it was.
Bradbury ends it with these words:
"The artist had drawn nearer and now was gazing into George Smith's face with great friendliness as if he were guessing every thought. Now he was nodding his head in a little bow. Now the ice-cream stick had fallen casually from his fingers. Now he was saying good night, good night. Now he was gone, walking back down the beach towards the south. George Smith stood looking after him. After a full minute, he did the only thing he could possibly do. He started at the beginning of the fantastic frieze of satyrs and fauns and wine-dipped maidens and prancing unicorns and piping youths and he walked slowly along the shore. He walked a long way, looking down at the free-running bacchanal. And when he came to the end of the animals and men he turned round and started back in the other direction, just staring down as if he had lost something and did not quite know where to find it. He kept on doing this until there was no more light in the sky, or on the sand, to see by.
He sat down at the supper table.
You're late, said his wife. I just had to come down alone. I'm ravenous.
That's all right, he said.
Anything interesting happen on your walk? she asked.
No, he said.
You look funny; George, you didn't swim out too far, did you, and almost drown? I can tell by your face. You did swim out too far, didn't you?
Yes, he said.
Well, she said, watching him closely. Don't ever do that again. Now — what'll you have?
He picked up the menu and started to read it and stopped suddenly.
What's wrong? asked his wife. He turned his head and shut his eyes for a moment.
Listen.
She listened.
I don't hear anything, she said.
Don't you?
No. What is it?
Just the tide, he said, after a while, sitting there, his eyes still shut.
Just the tide, coming in.