Leona Seufert
Class of 1969


From The Beat Goes On

Segment One

Daisy Aldan Remembrance



WHEN TOMORROW NEVER COMES


____It was the season of daylilies. Those yellow and orange punctuation marks that appear in every garden and all along the highways. I was once again on my long lonely journey north to visit an old and aging friend. I knew that when I arrived Helen would be her usual exuberant but irritating self. The person who I had come to love over the 35 years of our friendship would be there to greet me, walker and all. I was making this visit, because at 90, I wanted to see her in the flesh before the inevitable hand of death snatched her from me. The daylilies would just be starting their bloom, 380 miles north.

____However, this was more than just a journey to see an old friend. It was about a resolve I had made the previous May. When we reach the big five oh, most of us tend to take stock of our lives. We go over our past, list the things we didn't do or did do and shouldn't have, and either give up on the future or make resolutions about how we will do things different in the remaining years. I had just come down from a wonderful year that lead up to my 50th. I had traveled, seen projects realized, been creative, and landed a job that advanced my career. On my birthday in April I looked back but saw no sense in doing the maudlin "taking stock". Besides, the question "if you could go back what would you change" had always irked me. Time marches on, you can't go back, so why practice this exercise in futility? Then a month later, a chance peak at a Web site would hit me on the head like a sledge hammer, and my attitude would change.

____I was at work, taking a break and surfing the Web. I was trying to get some information on an upcoming event. I went to the home page but before I clicked on the event's link, I decided to scroll down to the very bottom. There I saw it. My jaw dropped. Daisy was dead! What continued to haunt me the rest of the day was not her death for she was old enough to have reached that point, but the fact that I had procrastinated one time too many. Ever since I had moved back to the Metro area I had had her address and her phone number. Time and again I said to myself I'll call her....tomorrow. I never did. Now, tomorrow will never come.

____Yes, when I had reached 50 I did do a bit of looking back and my tendency towards procrastination was probably the one thing I wanted to change. But so what? Like New Year's resolutions, you make 'em and you break 'em. But now, this day, procrastination became the sin I wished to exorcise. For from that one memorial message, daemons of another put off visit surfaced.

____Sometimes things don't work out the way we plan them. In the same town as Helen, was my friend Pete. 3 years ago I promised him a visit. But that summer I just didn't feel like taking the trip. The next summer, I felt I really should visit him since almost 5 years had passed. I had everything planned and then wham! I was in a car accident. No car, body hurting, couldn't make the trip. So true to Pete's style, he said, oh well, there's always tomorrow. Let's do it next summer. That Fall he was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. I had a new full time job, couldn't drive during the North Country winter blizzards, he got sicker, I never made it. He died before Christmas arrived. Once again, tomorrow never came.

____So as I was sitting at my desk trying not to cry and having to explain to my boss about Daisy and Pete, I made a resolution to conquer my procrastination. Especially in relation to my friends, the people important in my life. Ah, so, now I thought I had a handle on this 'weakness' of mine.

____Sometimes just when you think you've "got a handle on it" Life comes along, takes you by the scruff of the neck, shakes you and says "Take another look". And what you see is a whole new side to your problem. I had recently become a member of an organization and was attending their monthly meeting. Over the past month I had become acquainted with an number of people, worked with others, and looked forward to getting to know some of the more 'colorful' individuals. But after a long meeting, a noisy environment, a hot day, all I wanted to do was to go home. So I quietly left for the ladies room, and never returned. I just didn't want to deal with anyone so I thought best to say goodnight to none.

____Less then a week later one of the attendees had a stroke and died. I then realized not only would I never get a chance to know Alan, I never had a chance to say good-bye to him. This had nothing to do with conscious procrastination but more with attitude. With the attitude that tomorrow will come and I can pick up where I left off.

____As the miles passed on my drive, I began to ponder exactly what it is that I wished to change. If I procrastinate on something and die.....it doesn't matter to me. If I procrastinate on something involving another person and that person dies.....it doesn't matter to them. So is guilt part of the equation? Then I passed an exceedingly gorgeous group of daylilies. Hundreds had their orange blooming heads raised to the sun. And others dangled wilted from their stems. Then it hit me. It's not about procrastination, or dying, or guilt, or getting things done. It is about the dance that all of us are part of. How we each enrich each others lives yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And when tomorrow never comes, if a chance has been missed to dance one more dance with that other human being, both our souls have been the poorer for the beauty that was missed.

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Photoes of Daisy Aldan, from the collection of Lee Stewart, 1953

Page Eighteen of Twenty-Three

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