Our beloved Maine and the family sanctuary, taken during Annie’s last visit

On Fridays I try to share my favorite things…today’s blog takes a slight twist, all at once a sad remembrance of a young life lost and a celebration of a life lived at full throttle.  My cousin, Annie Gates (click here for obituary), passed away this week, losing a two year battle with cancer.  We traveled to Cambridge Wednesday to remember her, share stories, shed some tears and laugh.  Spencer, as she was called by her friends, was a mover and shaker in the 1980’s Boston emerging punk rock scene, and spent a great deal of her life living passionately through her music – as a DJ with WMBR in Boston, as a host of her radio show called The Mystery Girls, a rather raucous and bawdy radio show which Annie cites as the “most unprofessional thing ever on radio” to a publicist for Matador and Atlantic records.  She helped establish many a band throughout her career.  To me, seeing her was always the start of some good fun. Her deep throaty laugh and nonstop gab style (lady talkalot as she was called) turned into many late nights while we spent a few days together in Maine many summers over the years.

Let’s face it.  Funerals are sad.  The events leading up to that final event in life are many times not fair. But the beautiful thing about them is that they bring us to a screeching halt in our own lives and enable us to remember and honor a life – and truly appreciate every thread of a once vibrant being.  It’s just too bad that it takes such an act of finality to bring us to our senses.  

Annie wanted to have the following poem read at her service, which I wanted to share:

REVERSE LIVING

Life is tough.

It takes a lot of your time,

all your weekends,

and what do you get at the end of it?

Death, a great reward.

I think that the life cycle is all backwards.

You should die first, get it out of the way.

Then you live twenty years in an old-age home.

You are kicked out when you are too young.

You get a gold watch, you go to work.

You work forty years until you’re

young enough to enjoy your retirement.

You go to college,

you party until you’re ready for high school.

You become a little kid, you play,

you have no responsibilities,

you become a little boy or girl,

you go back into the womb,

you spend your last nine months floating.

And you finish off as a gleam in someone’s eye.

I’m not sure where you are right now, but I think I may be approaching my college years.  I have to remember not to take life too seriously, to pack in as much fun as I can, try to take advantage of all that comes my way instead of coming up with excuses. (And that all should be easy, since I’m about to enter college, right?)  To live life as a kid again would be a wonderful thing – we would run absolutely everywhere we went, try to sneak in a lollipop everyday, catch lightning bugs every night during the summer, run through the sprinkler to cool off, clip cards in our bike spokes to make that cool motorized sound.  I know, a bit unrealistic given the current demands on all of our lives, but something to always be cognizant of.  

And finally, in the words of Jonathan Larson, the brilliant creator of Rent:  ”Forget regret, or life is yours to miss … No other road, no other way, No Day but Today”(click here to listen to this very inspiring song). So it takes a life lost to remember what we should cherish.  View the world through the eyes of a child and don’t let any moment pass unnoticed.  Do as Annie did, and grab the bull by the horns, and go along for the wild ride.

Here’s to you, Ann Spencer Gates.