Wow, readers of the family blogs are going to wonder what is going on here.  After visiting Dad's cheerful new post about his burial plot and headstone, they probably think the reading can't get to be any more of a downer.  Well, have I got news for them!

 

I typed this out over the last couple of hours.  The goal was just to make me feel better writing it down and reading it to myself.   I didn't know if it was going on the blog until just now as I pasted it in.  My few readers are family and friends, so I saw no harm in sharing.   Between the writing and the pasting I omitted a lot of what I wrote.  Specifics, mostly-  I saw no reason to incriminate myself or others by relating some of our more entertaining anecdotes.  Maybe some other time.  

As to whether it helped writing it all down, the answer is "I have no idea."  I'm sure it didn't do any harm, at the very least. 

Anyway, here goes:

 

I lost a great friend last week.  Gone with a phone call.  

For a full year Ron had been an emotional and mental mess.  He knew it.  Everybody who loved him knew it, too.  He was seeing a therapist, he had medication, he had family and friends all willing to help in any way possible.  All of which turned out not to be enough. 

I’m no expert in such things, but I think it’s common for people to feel as if they should have done more in these situations.   Thankfully, I don’t feel that way.  I don’t doubt there’s more that I and we could have done, or something we could have done differently, to help.  But we did what we could and what we knew to do, and what seemed right at the time.  If we missed opportunities to help- as I’m sure we did- it wasn’t for lack of effort or lack of concern.   You just don’t always know what to do, and maybe sometimes there just is no right thing to do. 

Ron and I met at St. X.   The first few weeks I knew him as the little blond kid who pushed Anthony to class in the wheel chair, because Anthony had broken his leg playing baseball.   But soon we were friends.   Jim, Ron, me, Anthony, John, Bob (Alan! Or as our friend Janet took to calling him, to cover all the bases, ‘Bob-Alan’).  Our social circle certainly wasn’t impermeable- we drifted in and out of other crowds, and others drifted in and out of ours, but the six of us were frequently together and considered each other our social base.

Ron and I became even better friends through our college years (which stretched on and on- I took my time), and even better friends over the years after that.  I’m sure that’s rare.   Young friends often stay friends, but they don’t often get closer as the years go by.  Not these days, anyway.    We were in each other’s weddings, we played hundreds of softball games together, played golf on who-knows-how-many weekends, played poker, hung out and watched football and basketball.  I swam in his pool and played horseshoes and cornhole in his yard I have no idea how many times.    

We debated; always fun, because we agreed about virtually nothing in the realms of politics, religion, or sports, but never got mad at each other.  That’s pretty rare, too.   Once he told me a work friend was saying something or other negative about atheists and Ron had used me as an example against his friend’s argument. He said “I have a friend who’s an atheist, and he’s one of the best people I’ve ever known.”    

I don’t know if he was right about that, but I’ll never forget it and I’ll always appreciate it.  He was a good man and his opinion meant a lot to me.

Ron introduced me to all my friends on the Yogis softball team.   They are my friends because of him, and I’ve needed them.  Thank you, Ron, for that.

Ron introduced Jim to that team, too, which went a long way toward healing a breach between Jim and me.  Thank you, Ron, for that.   Jim is a tremendous friend.   I like to assume we would have ended up friends for life, anyway- we’ve been friends for decades- but I certainly don’t know that for sure.  I’ve been glad of our friendship for years, and now I’m not just glad, I’m also grateful. 

Ron was a good friend for a long time.  We had stupid juvenile fun together in high school.    We had stupid juvenile fun together in college, too.   We became adults together. We had stupid, juvenile fun as adults.   I guess we never grew out of stupid, juvenile fun.  

When my marriage ended Ron was a good friend in need.  Just as later I didn’t always know what to do for him, he also didn’t always know what to do for me.  There wasn’t always something to do.  But he was there, willing to help.  I thanked him for that, even when he couldn’t really help.  He thanked us, too, in this past year, even though we apparently we couldn’t really help.

You never know what’s going to happen.  I know that, and I knew that already.  But I admit I assumed Jim, Ron, and I would be 75% of many more golf foursomes for many more years.   I’m not sure how long it will take to get used to the new reality.

 I’m grateful, though, for the 27 years I knew Ron.  He was a good and decent man.  I was proud to call him my friend.  I am proud to say he was my friend.