Sometimes Things Are Alright

When he walked in on him in early December, he put on some Glenn Miller and then he bent over and said to Mr. Grossman, "Lew, when you're up in heaven with your friend, Roy, and you will be in heaven, you've been in purgatory down here, how would you like to be remembered? I'm a lawyer and I can do anything you need to have done. But tell me, how do you want to be remembered?"

Mr. Grossman looked up at Mr. Keating and whispered, "I want to be remembered." He tried to stop himself from crying.

"You will be remembered," said Mr. Keating, his eyes damp too. "I will always remember you. People ask me about you all the time. And I say, You're a fabulous person. Knows more about music than anyone I know. What else should I say?"

"I don't know," Mr. Grossman said.

"Well, I know. I'm lucky to have you as a friend."

"Yes."

"You mean an awful lot to me."

"You mean a lot to me."

"I know I do. Let's listen to Ella Fitzgerald, shall we?"

The invention of solitude, friendship, and the coping with death. It's all here.