So I went to a funeral

Last Sunday, I went to the funeral of a woman in the community I knew a little. She had appealing flower child energy, a sharp mind and kind of a sharp tongue. She died of cancer at age 57, which was about my mother's age when cancer took her. She had a boy, 19, and a girl, 15-16, which were my and my sister's ages more or less when my mother died. They both spoke well and together sang "Stand by Me," with the boy laying down a doo-wop rhythm that the girl's sweet mezzo soprano floated over. Nice kids.

The funeral brought me back 31 years, and I remembered how I didn't feel like a kid at the time, and wasn't treated like one (although it's likely that I pushed away the people who tried to). These two will probably get better care - their uncle is a well-known doctor and their grandparents seem like they'll be able to step up, at least in the short one). My sister and I were pretty much alone emotionally. What happened to us over the next three years was that I was adrift in NYC, drinking alcoholically, and my sister was married to a 35 year old man and had a baby on the way. For us, that seemed par for the course, but I couldn't help thinking that if in three years that's where these two kids ended up, I'd consider it, if not a tragedy exactly, than a bad outcome. So I at least had to consider what happened to my family in that light, and it made me very sad.

When I was in my mid-20s and leaving NYC for Miami Beach, my psychotherapist sat me down at our last session and gave me the best advice anyone ever gave me. In fact, it was so astute, so perfectly tailored to precisely what my problems stemmed from, and so clearly a strategy that, if followed, would spare me a world grief, of course there was no chance in hell that I would follow it.

After telling me I needed some help to stop drinking, he asked: "Do you know what being an adult means? Being an adult means looking at a situation you are in, and asking yourself: 'What do I want out of this?' Defining what you want is crucially important and Sly - you should want something good. Then ask yourself: 'Am I going to get what I want out of this situation?' And if the answer is 'no,' then you must leave that situation behind and not look back. Do you hear me? Get out and don't look back."

About 90 percent of all the problems I've had since can in some way be traced back to not heeding that advice. About 90 percent of all the success I've experienced accrued by following his words. So I'm a big believer in the power of advice, etc. And since it was easy to imagine myself in the coffin last Sunday, I've been lavishing my 6 year old son with affection and words of wisdom.

I'll probably save the get out and don't look back advice for later, but here are the principles I've been instilling in him since he was 3 or 4 that might do him some good. I wish I'd heard them from someone who I loved, who loved me, and who had my best interests in mind. The last one is key, the one that holds all the others together.

1. Payback's a bitch.
2. Talk is cheap.
3. Life is unfair.
4. Be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

That last one is by some Jew named Philo of Alexandria, and I first encountered it when reading Lost in America by Sherwin Nuland (a book that I found difficult to read but that haunts me still - ai ai ai the scene when Dad wants Sheppie to take him to a motion picture). It changed the way I looked at people and denuded me of a lot of my viciousness (which has paid dividends in the personal life, not so many in the creative life, alas).