Starting at the end

A friend of mine turned me on to Boston Legal and I am hooked. I bought seasons 1 and 2 on DVD and I am sitting in the airport watching one of the episodes. This particular episode has Michael J Fox playing Daniel Post, a rich man being sued for rigging a medical study. His attorney is the charming Denise Bauer, a smart and witty lawyer whom he begins to fall in love with. She sees all the wonderful things that makes Daniel who he is. His passion for life, drive, caring and loving heart. He is a real catch in every sense of the word with one fatal flaw. He is dying of cancer.

Daniel has a real zest for things. Outgoing and positive even though he realizes his days are literally coming to an end. He decides that he is going to give himself a funeral. Ya crazy I know. But he wanted to have his life celebrated, not mourned. So he throws a huge party with fun and games and friends and family all gathered to tell what Daniel has meant to them. After all don’t we all want to know what we mean to the people we love the most? I wonder what will be said of me on that day, just as Daniel was.

He invites Denise to go as his date. It is kind of funny as he invites a girl he is falling in love with to be his date at a funeral where he is the guest of honor. But she decides to go and does. She shows up and it’s a festival all right. People wearing the jersey of Daniels favorite hockey team, playing foosball and drinking beer. They even have a zamboni shaped cake. Apparently he was a fan.

Denise is watching this whole thing unfold and it hits her. She always KNEW Daniel was dying. She is his attorney defending him for rigging a cancer study. She knew he was running out of time and that other treatments he has tried had not worked. His current treatment wasn’t working. And the new treatment showed promise. But still, reality is what it is and he was almost assured to be dead very soon.

So what in the world was she thinking? Falling in love with a man facing the end of his life? Falling in love is supposed to the BEGINNING of a beautiful life isn’t it? Where did things go so wrong?

She runs from the funeral and Daniel chases her. He asks her where she is going and with tears in her eyes she sadly surveys the scene with him. They are at a party for him, with his friends and his family, and she is meeting them. And this is supposed to be a beginning. Not an end. And she knows she cant fall in love with someone when the end is near. She cant start at the end and miss all the possibilities and promises that beginnings are made of. And she walks away.

It made me brainstorm the idea that waiting for the end to start a beginning is such a tragic thing. Because life is supposed to be full of promise. And a look into the future, not the past. That when we are in that situation and we should be affectionately reliving wonderful memories full of love and laughter. Not speculating on what could have been.

Ultimately the tragedy is not that Daniel is dying. I hope you know that already. The tragedy is that he missed out on a great love. That he took too long to find one. That the sun was setting and he was just realizing he hadn’t been living. He was too busy to be in love. And love came too late for him.

I wonder how many of us will share his mistake.