Oh, yes, we are more than breath and bone
The breath and bone
The blood and flesh
The teeming microbes that inhabit us
The helical strands that shape it all
What are these but the pages and binding
Of a tome of stories
Stories as new as these fingers on keys
Stories ancient as the first stirring of life on Earth
Stories of love and loss
Stories of deeds and misdeeds
Stories of chances taken and opportunities missed
Stories of health and illness
The breath and bone are the what of us
The stories are the who and the how of us
Only a tiny fraction will ever be written
Written into books and letters and silicon memories
Told or sung to lovers, friends, enemies, and publics
And when that breath shall cease, that bone dissolve
Some few of those stories will live on in others
Becoming the only sure immortality granted us

Bob Wertzler is retired from almost twenty years in the mental health field in California and Arizona. There are times the title, “Recovering Therapist”, seems to fit. In 2006 he retired to move to Western North Carolina to help and become primary care giver for his father who had developed Dementia. Before all that, there was work at various times as a soldier (US Army 1967-70), community organizer, cab driver, welfare case worker, wooden toy maker, carpenter, warehouse worker, and other things. He relates to a line in a Grateful Dead song, “What a long, strange trip its been.”

You can read more of Bob’s writing at Of Cabbages and Kings