Loss

A friend called about 10:30 this morning to tell me of his wife’s passing last night. What can one say? There are always mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s hard to lose a loved one, so his family had my sympathy. On the other hand, it can be a blessing to the one who is gone. That was true in this case. This lady had been suffering from a terminal illness for months and her quality of life was now zero. Sometimes it is a blessing to the caregivers as well, who must watch their loved one sink lower and lower into misery and pain. To have the final chapter come to a close must be a burden lifted from them.

I called my Skype friend in Costa Rica and told him of the lady’s passing. Though he knew the family only through conversations with me, he wanted me to extend his condolences to them. I said I would tell them.

Around 3:30 in the afternoon I was semi-napping on my bed when the skies grew dark and the heavens opened up with a torrent of rain. Rain roared noisily upon the copper sheet above my bedroom roof. A chill wind blew through my open bedroom window. Bursts of air swung the window blinds inward and back, inward and back. I lay on the bed and reflected on the visitors who must be trying to traverse from their cars to my friend’s front door. Could the day get more miserable?

After a while the rain settled into a moderate downpour that lasted for what seemed like several hours. I didn’t look at my clocks. Time has become fairly meaningless in my house.

Eventually I got up and I sat at my computer. Had it been a sunny day I would have driven to a store and bought a condolence card. But it wasn’t a sunny day and I didn’t want too much time to pass without saying something. So I composed a condolence email, which I admit must be the lowest form of correspondence yet invented by mankind. Still, I wanted to pass on my own original thoughts. After all, anyone can plunk down five bucks for an anonymous writer’s mass-produced Hallmark thoughts. So I told myself.

Soon enough my friend’s house will become quiet again. Time will pass and the stream of visitors will dwindle to a trickle. Then it will become an occasional visitor. Time will stretch into empty hours filled by the chatter of a television or the drone of an air conditioner. One becomes used to the empty hours piling one upon another until blending into empty days, empty weeks. There is a reason why I write blogs.

Perhaps one morning my friend will receive a phone call and a voice will say, “Let’s go to Mickey D’s and buy sausage biscuits for breakfast.” He and I are single geezers now. Breakfast at McDonald’s is the way of our people.