November 6, 2011

After losing one's best friend smack in the prime of life, and quite suddenly at that, one doesn't know quite when the grief will sneak up and engulf. Yesterday, it so happens--after spending two hours lugging and stacking a half cord of firewood with my son on a golden autumn afternoon--my was one of those sneak-up-on-you days.

Simon & Garfunkel's song, "Old Friends," came upon me softly, playing innocently on the radio on the dashboard, and I had to pull off the highway. To me the tune was mournful, the lyrics ominous, a song about something I had yet to lose: those years of turning old with Marc and sharing as many future autumn afternoons as we had bright springtimes in the endless noon of our youth.

"..Can you imagine us
Years from today,
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange
To be seventy.
Old friends,
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fears..."