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Last Laugh
 My
friend Robert Maday died last week in Michigan.
Cancer finally got him, but he didn’t suffer too much. We’d
been pals for 46 years.
We were
classmates by my good luck, because
though  Bob
was a year older than
I was, his asthma had caused him to be held back a year. He seemed much
older, in a way. He was always scholarly, with a booming voice and a
professorial manner, though friendly and modest, with a laugh that made you
feel good all over. He was always carrying grownup books, which he actually
read. (Later, when I met famous scholars and intellectuals, they were often
men whose names I’d first heard from Bob.)
You
couldn’t help noticing Bob’s bright red hair and alert, twinkling
eyes. He looked deep, and I was curious. I struck up a conversation with him
in the school cafeteria; that fall he was for Nixon and I was for Kennedy; he
had reasons and I had only passions, but I enjoyed his thoughtful
explanations. I’d assumed politics was just a matter of who you were
loyal to, and here was a boy who actually thought about it — a novelty
to me. I liked and respected him right away. He was challenging without being
threatening. Even then he was wise.
By high school
we were close friends. His father, from whom he got his deep voice, had a
small insurance business, his mother was a sweet Southern lady, his older
brother a gifted pianist. The Madays were conservative Republicans; my folks
were liberal Democrats. Though I developed a passion for Shakespeare, I was
also a goof-off who kept getting hopeless crushes on girls; Bob’s
interests were generally on a higher plane. He loved American history,
Bach’s organ music, but also Laurel and Hardy.
During our
college years we drifted apart. I got married and had kids. But I ran into him
again when we were both in grad school, and our friendship took wings.
I’d also become a conservative Republican and we had a lot to talk
about. He got me reading C.S. Lewis.
My wife and
children came to love Bob; I got a kick out of the respectful way the kids
called him “Mr. Maday.” And he was always so affectionate to
them. They’re all grown now, scattered around, and they
haven’t seen him for many years, but he’s their loss too.
Bob’s
own family life was sad. He never married; his heart was set on the daughter
of one of his professors, but she didn’t return his sentiments, and he
remained a bachelor. Then his father died, and his troubled older brother,
Arthur, perished in a fire, leaving Bob to take care of his mother. They were
devoted to each other, but in recent years her mind has been failing; then
came his cancer. At least she doesn’t know she’s alone now.
Poor, dear woman!
![[Breaker quote for Last Laugh: A friend to thank God for]](2006breakers/061221.gif) After
I moved east we kept in touch by phone,
mostly, with a few occasional visits. Both of us put on weight, and
Bob’s flaming red hair turned gray and thinned. It lifted my heart when
he boomed happily, “Hi, Joe!” A sound I’ll never hear again
now. We’d chat about the news, have a few laughs, remark on the
little ironies. Sometimes we’d reminisce about our old teachers, such
as a liberal we’d come to respect over the years (I hadn’t
expected to come to agree with him so much) and a comical little Communist.
We both lost any faith we’d had in the Republican Party. How had it
gone from Reagan to Bush?
We never had
a cross word in those 46 years. Bob’s good nature made that
impossible, and we avoided the touchy subject of religion: he was a
Protestant, and I was a Catholic, and we left it at that. Until the end.
Three weeks
before he died, Bob was received into the Catholic Church. I called him for
what turned out to be the last time. I told him the old joke about the old Irish
Protestant who, on his deathbed, sends his son for a Catholic priest and
converts to Rome. When the priest leaves, the son, stunned and tearful,
asks, “Why’d you do it, Dad?” The old man answers,
“Well, son, if I’ve got to go, I figure, better one o’ them
than one of us!”
Midway
through, I wondered if this was an appropriate joke to be telling a dying
friend. It was. Bob loved it. That was our last laugh.
Thank you,
dear Lord, for giving me this friend for so many years.
Joseph Sobran |
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| Copyright © 2006 by the
Griffin Internet Syndicate, a division of Griffin Communications This column may not be reprinted in print or Internet publications without express permission of Griffin Internet Syndicate 
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