Thursday, the temperature climbed into the 60s and we felt the warmth of spring, but it turned out to be teasing us because it is raining and cold again today. We managed our first softball practice last night for my daughter Rachel's 7th and 8th grade girls’ team. Then we came home and watched Survivor and the series finale of ER, a show I greatly admire because there seem to be so few good ones anymore. ER lasted 15 years. Saying we watched the finale is mostly true. Marcia and I lasted until the final segment. We fell asleep during the last set of commercials and missed what happened in the final scene, and whatever final message appeared before they launched the credits for the last time. We woke up and it was over forever.
There remains an ever so slight and subtle lack of closure for me because we missed the end. What I saw when I woke up looked like every other week, with credits crawling across the bottom of the television screen as channel 4 news anchor Chuck Scarborough told us what was coming on the 11 o'clock news while the NBC theme chime played in the background. They do that every week. Every single week. So I missed the epic transition from life to death. Now, the morning after, it feels like it will be back again next week, not that I even watch ER much anymore. I saw only a couple of episodes this year. But I have taken comfort in knowing ER is there, that it has been a regular weekly occurrence from the time I was 29 years old, the year after we moved from Missouri to New Jersey. Who moves from Missouri to New Jersey anyway? Well, we did. We left on February 27, 1993 from Springfield, MO in a yellow Ryder truck pulling our white '86 Lynx on a trailer on the same day the World Trade Center was bombed. The Towers survived that attack and we thought they would go on forever, too. But they didn't. Not long after we moved to New Jersey, ER came to life too, and we had this parallel universe kind of thing going on and ER just kept chugging along year after year, just as we did. Now ER is supposedly gone, but I missed the ending. If ER is gone, what does this mean for us?
We never actually watched ER until 2000, but I knew it was there long before that. I watched it consistently for about four years, but it kept getting harder to stay up until eleven and get up at 5:15 a.m. the next day. So I stopped. When I saw it last night, I was reminded of how good it was, the dialogue, the camera work, the real life feel, the late Michael Crichton's medical knowledge infused throughout, and the ethical challenges of life and death.
"This is a good show," I told Marcia, something I rarely say anymore
Most of television today is watching people live fake lives before a camera, something we call "reality television." But it is unreality, un-ER.
Besides ER, I am preemptively grieving a few other things I see heading toward their demise as well. I think we start grieving things before they are gone--what I like to call preemptive grief--because we see the end coming. Have you seen how thin and frail Time magazine has become lately? How many newspapers are hemorrhaging money and cannot go on much longer? How many more mornings I will be able to walk outside at 6:00 a.m. to get the newspaper and feel the cool morning air? How many more times will I be able to hold the newspaper in my hand while I sit in the swing on a spring day in my backyard, reading? I am bracing myself to let go of things these too, fearful I will end up like a character in Fahrenheit 451, staring at a television in a zombie-like trance, kind like all of the people on the treadmills at my gym in the morning. Or staring at a computer screen, or just simply staring into space, the whole world gone virtual on me.
Next week is Good Friday. It just occurred to me that the end of ER must be a little of what it must have felt like for Jesus' followers on Good Friday. Denial. Sadness. Contemplation. I miss ER already, but I will probably have to check back at 10 p.m. next Thursday just to make sure it is gone. I can't believe we missed that ending, leaving me ever so slightly doubtful about next week. If I only could have stayed awake a little longer, I could be sure that ER is not coming back. I guess if ER is not there next Thursday, I could probably find it in syndication somewhere on one of those 157 cable channels. On Easter, though, I will not be looking for ER. I will be looking for someone else.
There remains an ever so slight and subtle lack of closure for me because we missed the end. What I saw when I woke up looked like every other week, with credits crawling across the bottom of the television screen as channel 4 news anchor Chuck Scarborough told us what was coming on the 11 o'clock news while the NBC theme chime played in the background. They do that every week. Every single week. So I missed the epic transition from life to death. Now, the morning after, it feels like it will be back again next week, not that I even watch ER much anymore. I saw only a couple of episodes this year. But I have taken comfort in knowing ER is there, that it has been a regular weekly occurrence from the time I was 29 years old, the year after we moved from Missouri to New Jersey. Who moves from Missouri to New Jersey anyway? Well, we did. We left on February 27, 1993 from Springfield, MO in a yellow Ryder truck pulling our white '86 Lynx on a trailer on the same day the World Trade Center was bombed. The Towers survived that attack and we thought they would go on forever, too. But they didn't. Not long after we moved to New Jersey, ER came to life too, and we had this parallel universe kind of thing going on and ER just kept chugging along year after year, just as we did. Now ER is supposedly gone, but I missed the ending. If ER is gone, what does this mean for us?
We never actually watched ER until 2000, but I knew it was there long before that. I watched it consistently for about four years, but it kept getting harder to stay up until eleven and get up at 5:15 a.m. the next day. So I stopped. When I saw it last night, I was reminded of how good it was, the dialogue, the camera work, the real life feel, the late Michael Crichton's medical knowledge infused throughout, and the ethical challenges of life and death.
"This is a good show," I told Marcia, something I rarely say anymore
Most of television today is watching people live fake lives before a camera, something we call "reality television." But it is unreality, un-ER.
Besides ER, I am preemptively grieving a few other things I see heading toward their demise as well. I think we start grieving things before they are gone--what I like to call preemptive grief--because we see the end coming. Have you seen how thin and frail Time magazine has become lately? How many newspapers are hemorrhaging money and cannot go on much longer? How many more mornings I will be able to walk outside at 6:00 a.m. to get the newspaper and feel the cool morning air? How many more times will I be able to hold the newspaper in my hand while I sit in the swing on a spring day in my backyard, reading? I am bracing myself to let go of things these too, fearful I will end up like a character in Fahrenheit 451, staring at a television in a zombie-like trance, kind like all of the people on the treadmills at my gym in the morning. Or staring at a computer screen, or just simply staring into space, the whole world gone virtual on me.
Next week is Good Friday. It just occurred to me that the end of ER must be a little of what it must have felt like for Jesus' followers on Good Friday. Denial. Sadness. Contemplation. I miss ER already, but I will probably have to check back at 10 p.m. next Thursday just to make sure it is gone. I can't believe we missed that ending, leaving me ever so slightly doubtful about next week. If I only could have stayed awake a little longer, I could be sure that ER is not coming back. I guess if ER is not there next Thursday, I could probably find it in syndication somewhere on one of those 157 cable channels. On Easter, though, I will not be looking for ER. I will be looking for someone else.