There is a scene in the movie "Moonstruck" that really hits home for anybody my age. It happens when the character played by Olympia Dukakis is awakened by a phone ringing by her bed at three in the morning. Her reaction to being awakened at that hour is: "Who died?"
I have the same reaction when our phone rings late at night. It's never good news. Half the time it's some fool who's had too much to drink wondering "Where's Marty?" or something like that. Other times it is some kid who never goes to bed asking: "Hey, what's up." Of course, by that time I'm the one who's up, but I still try to be polite and end the call gracefully. Whatever the reason for having my sleep interrupted, the odds are it's a hassle at best and bad news at worst.
The phone rang at some ungodly hour the other night. It was a wrong number.
"Who's this?" the caller demanded.
"It's Peter," I replied sleepily. "Who's this?"
"Peter who?"
"The Peter you woke up at three fifteen. Who's this?"
"Is Marty there?"
"There's nobody here by that name. I think you have the wrong number."
"What's your number?"
"Look, why don't you check the number you're dialing and try again. But please don't wake us up anymore."
"You're sure Marty isn't there?" The kid was either stoned, stupid, or playing a prank.
Come to think of it, he might have been all three.
"Yes," I said, still controlling my anger, "I'm sure." Then I hung up.
About five minutes later the phone rang again. It was the same caller. "Is Marty there?" he wondered.
Now I don't get mad easily, and rather than yell at somebody (which might be what they wanted in the first place) I lied instead: "Marty was here, but he got busted. Try calling the jail."
"Busted?" the caller exclaimed. "Busted for what?"
"He was caught engaging in indecent behavior with farm animals. Several sheep have lodged a complaint against him. If you're his friend you need to go bail him out."
Once again I put the phone back in the cradle. I was finally able to go back to sleep, but it wasn't a good sleep and I dreamed that people were picking on me for no good reason.
Getting back to the scene from "Moonstruck," I do know that when you get a call that someone you know and maybe even love has passed away there is always the thought that you didn't get a chance to say goodbye. Anyone who has lost a parent knows the feeling of asking themself if they had communicated their love to that person recently. And if the answer is that they haven't told someone of their feelings they will never again have the chance.
It's a miserable feeling—having to live with the knowledge that someone passed away and you hadn't expressed to them how much they meant to you. It's a hurt that stings every time you think about it. The bottom line is to try and tell those you care about what you feel before they pass away. It takes so little effort to just say "I love you" to a friend or family member, yet how many of us actually do that?
Old folks, especially, need to be reminded by friends and family how much they are appreciated. It's easy for an old person to be forgotten. My old friend Mary used to answer her phone by saying: "Hello Peter" long before there was any such thing as Call Waiting. I soon realized that in her mind I was the only one who ever called her, but whenever she answered the phone with "Hello Peter" I felt a little twinge of sadness in identifying with her loneliness.
A girl I once knew ended up discarding her telephone answering machine. When I asked her why she did that, she said: "I got tired of coming home and having no messages. It hurt to think about who Didn't call!"
So take a moment and think if there isn't somebody out there who'd love to hear from you and hasn't in a long time. Friend or family, the important thing is to let them know you care and why you do while there is yet time. None of us are guaranteed another day of life, so we need to make the days we get count as much as we can. If just one person reading this will tell another person how much they care for them, it'll make my day.
Just try not to tell them at three o'clock in the morning.
Opinion
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Janie Slaven
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