Something’s Coming

There’s a feeling I’m unable to shake that a big test is coming. It probably has to do with this Saturday. There’s a celebration of life for a dear friend lost to ALS, several weeks back. His wife asked me to bring the music. I’ve got it. I know he liked it because he and his wife danced to it with us, and he and I talked about it. Still, there will be people there I don’t know, and who certainly never came to our parties, but I guess all we can really do is kick out the jams and let the notes fall where they may.

Meanwhile, in the run up to Saturday, I have two events that speak to the future. On Wednesday, my son’s daughter will sign a national letter of intent to run track at Sam Houston. I’m on the guest list. That evening there will be a dinner. On the next day, my daughter’s daughter will be singing in a show at her elementary school honoring veterans, I’m one, and then I can have lunch with her. When that’s over, I’ll wait around and score a second cafeteria lunch with my young grandson. I think he’ll like that.

Of course, perhaps the feelings I’m feeling also have something to do with the missing wife who would have been front and center at all these events, consoling the friend’s wife, being happy for our son and his daughter, and rapturous to be in the presence of the two youngsters. And most importantly, I would have had a shoulder to cry on in the first case, and someone to hug in the second. A partner to lean on and to share with. But I guess that’s why we have two feet. To stand. On our own. And walk around. And maybe that’s why we have friends and children. Because they know and they won’t let us fall if things get hard.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale