Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Matter of perspective

Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2000 | 9:44 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

TWO FUNERALS, a wedding and an election. Sounds like a movie.

This time, though, life is imitating art. And there are lessons to be learned.

I wrote in this space last week about the funeral of Evelyn Goot. On Sunday the best writer in my family wrote about the wedding of her cousin, Alyson, over the weekend. Yesterday the friends and family of Mary Alice Redditt gathered at Palm Mortuary to say goodbye and "thank you" to a lady who reached beyond her 90th birthday to bring more than a measure of responsibility and respect to the lives of the Las Vegans she touched during her more than 50 years in this community.

Mary came to work in the Greenspun household 51 years ago and she never left. She never left our hearts, she never left our home and she never left us alone when she thought we were stepping beyond the lines that she so clearly drew for us during our youth. Even after Mary retired at the very young age of 80, she managed to be at every family event because that's where she belonged. She was family to us and she was family to so many of her friends who lived near her and cared for her during her final years. Like she did for us, she taught all who would listen -- and heaven help those who didn't -- life's good lessons.

While we never really knew what her own life was about before she moved to Las Vegas so many years ago -- those were times Mary kept from all of us -- it was abundantly clear that what she took from those days formed the basis for the experience and the understanding that made her so wise. Mary's life was simple. It was based on hard work and, yes, some pretty hard playing, too, and an abiding respect for all persons who had respect for themselves. She also taught us the meaning of loyalty which has, unfortunately, become somewhat of a lost virtue these days.

Mary died the same day as Evelyn Goot. Evelyn's life story was one of dedication to family and community. So was Mary's. And while they grew up and lived worlds apart, they were very much alike in the newness that was the Las Vegas community back then, one struggling not only for an identity but for the right way to grow toward what has become a bright and exciting future. Their obituaries appeared on the same page of the Sun, with an equal amount of space devoted to each of them. While that news judgment may have been coincidental, it was entirely fitting because each of these women deserved the billing they got.

Funerals are always sad because we are saying goodbye to friends and loved ones, but these two were celebrating long and fruitful lives, so while the sadness was there, so also was the thankfulness that these two people lived among us.

In between the funerals, just like a metaphor for life, was the wedding of my niece. It was a warm and loving moment that celebrated two lives just beginning as one, a sharp contrast to the finality that started the weekend and would greet us with the beginning of the next week. Sandwiched between the funerals like it was, the joy of that wedding and the party that followed more than offset the emptiness that many of us felt. Isn't that the way of life? For every step or two forward there is one going back. All is not perfect, so it is how we handle the downturns that allows us to enjoy the good times.

Of course, while our personal lives were riding an emotional roller coaster, our country was also experiencing a thrill ride of its own. One that as of this writing still had not reached a conclusion. I write, of course, about the presidential election, which we all know will be decided but we just aren't certain how or when. Perhaps by the time this reaches your doorstep, the U.S. Supreme Court will have ruled and we will have a clearer picture of just how far we must go to know who will be the next president. But if it continues according to form, perhaps not.

There is no question that the person who will be inaugurated next January will be the most powerful individual in the world. There is a strong sense of gravity attached to each and every decision that is being made -- whether in the courts, in the canvassing rooms or even in the Florida Legislature -- because the man who leads this nation will also be charged with showing the way for other nations around the world to follow toward a more peaceful and prosperous tomorrow. In short, this is some real heavy stuff we are witnessing.

And yet it is difficult to give more weight to this most exciting and dramatic quest for the White House when we compare it to the real-life events that have just occurred. I don't think it is any different for other Americans who, while it may not be a death or a wedding they are dealing with, are just as caught up with living their own lives the best they can.

The question of who will be the next president is something we all share, and the drama leading up to the inauguration is one of the most exciting civic events of ours or any other time. Yet we must keep what is happening in perspective. While getting this election thing right is of great national importance -- one of those things in life that is greater than each of us -- we must still be sobered by the life and death struggles that define our everyday lives.

There will be many lessons learned from this closest and most contested of elections. Most of them will inure to the benefit of our nation and our democracy. But there are also lessons to be learned from the ups and downs of life that some of us have experienced in abundance over the past few days and which all of us will experience during our lives. And those have to do with perspective.

We must always remember who and what are most important in our lives. When we get that straight, it will be much easier to deal with an election -- even for the presidency -- that ends with a winner and a loser. And the proof is the fact that there is always next year, or four years from now, or even eight. The struggle for power and progress is great and must not be diminished. But it does not carry the finality that defines a funeral nor the joy that surrounds a wedding.

Two funerals, a wedding and an election. If this were a movie, it would be one heck of a life.

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