In Memoriam

My cat died on Sunday. He was very old.

This morning it rained hard and I slept late. Around quarter past nine, I thought I heard Eddie in the hallway, then I remembered that he was gone. There will be a few more mornings like that until the part of me that walks around during the day finally gets through to the part of me that lives in my dreams.

I saw on the web that Wendy Wasserstein died yesterday.

There was a night burried somewhere in my early twenties that I can remember only dimly. In those days, I was working for the architectural office in that building next to the Lipstick building on 53rd street, and after work one night I went to P.J. Clarkes' with my collegue. We sat down in the restaurant and were about to order when she walked in and sat down at our table. Garrulous and maybe a little kookie, she ordered a meal and ate with us; she said her name was Wendy Wasserstein and that she wrote plays. Me and Alex looked at each other and I'm not sure if either of us believed her.

I don't remember what we talked about or what she said; the whole moment was subfused with a surreal quality. Then, after finishing her hamburger, she got up and left as suddenly as she had arrived (neglecting to pay the bill). Maybe it was her, maybe it wasn't -- I guess that doesn't matter. Either it was her, and the episode is just another molecule in the legend that her life became, or it was an insane imposter, inspired by the spirit of Wendy's life to scam a free meal off of two nerdy office workers.

I had a friend that I met at the office several years ago. I can't really say we were all that close, but I did go out for beer with him when I first moved to White Plains, way before all that stuff happened.

He got sick and died two and half years ago. It was difficult to watch - his stomach swelled and they had to drain him; dialysis, waiting list for a liver-kidney transplant. He was 57 when he died.

The apartment I live in is the one he used to live in - I mean a long time ago, 12 years or so. He was moving out and I needed a place. I found these photographs in the attic and I put them online as a memorial. Mostly they are of his days at college in Ohio.

My father died in his sleep Thursday, October 12th at the Stratton Veterans Administration Hospital in Albany at 6AM.

I was fortunate to be able to spend the last two days of his life with him. He was in considerable pain but managed to maintain his dignity until the very end.

My father was a humble man, so much so that I am often surprised by the things he did for others yet never told me about. He leaves behind many grateful men and women in the town of Gilboa, New York, where he spent his retirement.

My father had three wives, Terry, who he met at college, my mother Carol, who he met in New York City after World War II, and Greta, who he met in Bronxville and spent the years of his retirement with in the catskill mountains. I can't say we had an ideal life together when I was a child. He had his difficulties, but he always did his best to be there for me. It wasn't until my twenties that I got to know him as a friend.

Dad loved music and people and ideas and art. He was unrestrained in his thinking. He made his living as a tax attourney, as a piano player and as a piano tuner. I think if he could have a do-over, he would of become a piano tuner first. The law thing never seemed to work that well for him. He didn't like rules, and didn't trust authority. He liked playing the piano, though.

He loved technology: computers, satellites and the internet. Just a few days ago he enthusiastically expressed to me the promise of the 21st century, the idea that you could live anywhere and just plug in. He liked that idea a lot.

At eighty years old, he had the capacity for hope, wonder and excitement of a ten year old child. He never really got old; he always saw the world fresh, saw the world for what it could be rather than what it was. He always expected the best from people. He was kind, even to those who were not kind to him.

The last day we were together I was sitting with him when he came up with this idea. Its sort of hard to describe - he took his bed table and moved it just so, the box of kleenex, the towels stacked on top so he could rest his head and breathe without lying down. A creative solution to the problem. When he said goodbye to me that night I didn't think it was for the last time.

Losing your father is something we all have to face eventually, but knowing that does not make it any easier.

Scott Higgins, October 21, 2000

Clarence B. Higgins, Jr, decorated naval aviator, attorney and jazz pianist, passed away Thursday in Albany. He was 80 years old and lived in Gilboa, New York, having retired there from Bronxville, NY.

In WWII, Mr. Higgins flew carrier missions off the USS Hoggatt Bay as a torpedo bomber pilot in the battles at Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Lingayen Gulf. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross and 6 air medals: navy unit citation – 2 stars, American Theater, Asiatic-Pacific – 3 stars and Philippine Liberation – I star.

An attorney in tax and corporate reorganization, Mr. Higgins was also a pianist of note, playing in New York nightclubs throughout the fifties and sixties and at various events in recent years as an accompanist and entertainer.

Mr. Higgins was born on March 24, 1920 in Milton, Massachusetts. He was graduated from Deerfield Academy, Duke University and Boston University School of Law. He received a Masters of Law from Columbia University. He is survived by his wife Margaret (Greta) Higgins and his former wife Carol Higgins and their three children, Heather, Ariel and Scott. Also a son, Kim Higgins Townsend, by his earlier marriage to Theresa DeMarco Townsend.