Making Plans
Here we are. A new day. The sun lit the morning clouds in a spectacular fashion. That’s done. The day is started. Not much on the agenda. Plans are in hand for the trip to Uvalde tomorrow for the funeral of our friend, Sky. That’s still sad business. Spent part of yesterday talking to friends to see who was going to the funeral and how we’d get there. A Spicewood couple will swing by and pick me up for the sad trip south. My goddaughter is going with her husband and her mother.
I imagine it will be like most funerals. Her children know us. So, we won’t be strangers, but there will be closer people at hand to comfort them. Friends, cousins, and aunts, and uncles. There will be music. Sky will be remembered, people will cry, and then we will go out to the ranch for food, drink, and remembrances. Our little group eventually most likely will cluster off to the side and depart for home when the time feels right. And then the world for everyone will resume its more or less normal course, minus one more voice.
The pace of losing people for me is only going to pick up. I’m just at that age. In the last three years, I’ve lost a wife and three friends. All of them were younger than I am. So, there’s a bit of survivor’s guilt. Why am I still standing? Difficult question to answer. Mostly, luck. It does make me think I should try to do something worthwhile in the years left to me. Writing helps. And just being a decent human being seems a worthy goal. I guess it’s all about making the world a better place, although maybe I should settle for the world around me. That seems doable and less grandiose.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale