‘Yeah, yeah

I’m the last of my kind, 

Try to find another just like me

You’ll be looking for a real long time,

Cause I’m, yeah, year,’

“I’m the last of my kind…”

-Shaboozey

____

I suppose we are all the last of our kind in one way or another, but I got a letter last week from someone who left me in tears and made me think I am almost certainly one of a kind, and one of the last, for better or worse.

The world is changing well beyond me, and although I have a rich and meaningful place, a letter from a former boss and mentor sent me brooding for a couple of days.

I have no complaints about being older, but the reality of it sometimes knocks me down. I love love and am not eager to leave it.

The letter was from Steve, one of my first editors in journalism. He took a risk hiring me. I couldn’t type, didn’t finish college, quit a miracle job at the New York Times because it felt too stiff and snooty for me. I was smart and cocky.

I met Steve in Philadelphia, and he took the trouble to train me as a writer and journalist. Be honest and be strong, he said, your purpose is to do good with your writing.

Steve would look at the stories I handed him, and most often he would tear out the first few pages and throw them in the trash. “Just tell us the story,” he said. “Stop winding up. Just pitch.” I was windy even then.

So I did, and it worked. I was editor of a newspaper before I was 30, and worked for the Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and CBS News, among others.

I spoke for honesty and gave a lot of crooked politicians real trouble. I loved it. It’s true what Steve wrote: the kind of  journalism we did is gone without a trace, consumed by greedy billionaires whose only passion is money and the will of the powerful, not their enemies.

________

_____

Steve wrote to tell me that he had stage 4 lung cancer (all that smoking) and expected to go into hospice shortly. “I’m just writing to tell you I’m dying, so you don’t have to hear about it from someone else. ”

“You were a great reporter,” he said. “I loved teaching you; you actually listened. You were one of a kind. There will not be any more like you, or even like me.” Steve said goodbye and left me sobbing. I loved him, and he taught me so much.

I’m not big on living in the past. That world is gone forever. We will all end up leaving the world, as Steve one. But his call went deep.

In the darkness of the night, I sometimes think of the world I loved, knowing it is gone and will not come back. For all I know, what follows may be better; nostalgia is a poison for me.

Lots of people I worked with have died. That’s the stream of life.

Listening to Shaboozey this morning during my meditation hour (he is one of my favorite singers and writers), I thought that Steve, so wise and empathetic, was gone (I saw online that he died last night) and that we both were one of a kind.

As full and content as I am in my life now, it’s a sobering thought. Steve and I were each one of a kind. But so what?

It’s the stream of life, I think, there will always be one of a kind to forget. Godspeed, Steve.