I guess Ive lived a very blessed life. At 56, the death of my dear friend Steve has rattled me, and allowed me to experience for the first time the passing of someone this close to me. My other friends, my family, my brothers and my parents, are all still alive, and pretty healthy. I have had relatives pass away, but we always lived many miles away, and I never knew them. I watched from a distance as my parents grieved over the loss of friends and family. When my Mom and Dads closest friends died, I was very sad and cried at the funeral, mostly because I saw such sadness in my parents eyes. Mom was her maid of honor and vice versa. Those people were my uncle Jack and aunt Margie. But now its my turn, and I know my folks know what Im going through, but theres not much they can do for me. I gotta walk through it. And my friends know, and they care, but I dont think anyone really feels what I feel. They have felt it perhaps, but its not like they can really feel it with me. I feel awful this evening - sad. Selfish perhaps, I know, but after 10 days its becoming more real. No silly text messages. No surprise email with a cool old photo scanned. No one to just call and relate a story from the fast food drive through that only the two of us got a kick out of. No link back to my childhood. I dont have any other friends that I kept in contact with from when I was a boy. We allowed each other to drift back 40 years and be stupid kids together again. Time wasnt relevant, and we never aged. I think today I feel much older. It helps I think to write about it, and cry about it. I hope so anyway. And I dont want you to feel like you have to follow up with some words of your own. Thanks for reading this, and keep his brother Scott and his wife Shelly, and his sister Vicky, in your prayers. I know they have to be really aching because I sure am.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 07:33:22 +0000