One of the reasons I left TV news was that it was getting too close to  home. It was getting too close to me.

I went to a funeral home to cover the services for a story and saw the name of a woman who had been a big part of my childhood on the little letter board. I did not even know she had passed and her funeral was that same day. I had to tell my photojournalist to wait for me outside while I went in another room and cried.

When visiting the House of Correction for a story, I saw young man I knew from Sherman Park. He  was happy to see me and when his fellow inmates asked how he actually knew me, he said "We play tennis together".

I went to court one day for a story about a man who was causing some trouble in Milwaukee. As he was led out of the courtroom he nodded at me in that simple gesture that all Black people recognize. He had gone to my high school.

When called to the courthouse for jury duty I went because it is my responsibility as a citizen. As I walked through the hall, the defendant was coming out of the courtroom with his lawyer. He waved at me and said "I'm glad you are on my jury!".

Every few months I would meet someone my father had helped get a job or get into college. He worked for the Urban League. I was always proud to hear how he had helped them and appreciated them telling me.

But, I'm glad I'm out of the news business now because I friend of mine was recently murdered and I don't think I could have read his name on the air. You have to separate yourself from the stories you cover or read when you are an anchorperson, but it was all getting too close.

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Getting older is like being in a boat and leaving the shore.

You keep looking back at the land slowly disappearing, getting farther and farther away and you feel like you are losing something.  You are losing a connection with your past. You are losing all the people who made up your childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and adulthood.

All the “grown-up” who guided you and you looked to as the guiding stars are leaving.  One by one they die and you are left with a hole in your rolodex that cannot be filled. 

Social media can make it creepy, too.  There are names in your contacts list that you cannot call or text anymore. New names have been added, but the ones that are not back there on the shore, cannot be replaced.

Getting older also means that the elders in your life have been replaced by… you.

Your kids look at you as the “grown-ups” now.

If you turn around and look forward at the open water, you hope that you see some land in front of you. Right now there is none in sight.

But, maybe that is what heaven is.  When you start to see new land in front as the land behind you is out of sight.