Day of Death in the Air

I'm taking off today to drive Wifey up to Dania for a memorial service, for Wifey's friend Linda's boyfriend.  The fellow, who I only met once, took his own life after an adulthood of battling addiction.

It's sad, but nothing new.  Neil Young sang that every junkie's like a setting sun...and so it is.  This fellow was young and strong and handsome, and shared Linda's passion for rescuing special needs dogs.  She's taking one of them as hers now.  Such a waste...


And then I read today's Herald obit, one of the daily tasks I do that Wifey finds hilarious.  Truth is -- I find them more interesting than the People column -- I learn of Miami pioneers, and community leaders who passed on...

Anyway, today there was a young-ish fellow who died --at 53.  I recognized him from around town -- his name was Carlos, and he was a commercial lawyer.  He was one of the guys my friends and I call "Power Cuban lawyers" -- they always seem to be up to some major commercial case or transaction -- they all send their kids to the local Catholic schools, and if the kids are allowed to leave Miami, they go to Notre Dame, or Georgetown, or maybe Boston College.

The obit said Carlos was a wine expert, and avid skier.  He dropped of a heart attack in Colorado, while skiing.  He recently remarried and had a blended family -- two kids from his first marriage, and two from his wife.  Seemed like an all around regular guy.

But there was a strange catch.  The obit mentioned that his sister in law set up a GoFundme.com account -- to "ease the burden of the funeral."  Wow.  Guy lives high, with the wine and skiing, and his family is asking for help to bury him?

I guess I'm not surprised.  Years ago my partner Paul and I met with a private banker on Brickell about our accounts, and Paul interrogated the banker about her other clients -- the "power lawyer" types, who had mansions in the Gables, and vacation homes, and sent their kids to private school.  The banker told us that the vast majority of them had little, if any, savings -- they spend their 7 figure salaries each year.

I was knocked back at that news.  I couldn't sleep at night unless I lived well below our means.  Even when I was starting out, and money was tight, I received a $10k referral fee from a friend's firm.  Wifey had thoughts about spending the money -- I set aside what went for taxes, and then took $1000 to burn.  The rest went to savings.  As I recall, we took D1 to Disney, and stayed in one of the overpriced on campus hotels -- a luxury for us then.  But I was happy the rest of the money was put away -- to pay for future dance classes, and trips, and ultimately sorority fees at UF...

The other way of looking at it is that Carlos exits as we all do -- in a pocketless coffin, as my maternal grandmother used to remark, so what difference does it make?  Dying with too much money doesn't do much good...

So we'll leave in a few hours, and go pay homage to a nice young fellow.  I do NOT plan on contributing to the Carlos fund --there are many other charities that need my help, I figure.

And I never forget the sage observation of Jim Morrison -- no one here gets out alive...