Old friends never die…they just fade away. Only memories remain.
***
Today I said goodbye to an old friend that passed. It was unexpected. But hey, aren’t they all? Ask anyone, “Say, think you’ll be next to pass?” You get a shrug of the shoulders, a roll of the eyes. Nobody expects to be the next obit in the local paper.
We were quite close on occasion, distant in the last couple of years. It happens like that. Tastes and interests change. You know how it is. Some friends don’t change but we do. One is old, another new. And our time together had gotten old.
So, I’m sitting here listening to George Jones wail what might be the best country song ever written, “He stopped loving her today, they placed a wreath upon his door, soon they’ll carry him away, he stopped loving her today.” Leave it to a country song to define pretty much every living memory. While these words don’t fit the passing of my friend, they do set the mood.
All friendships can wear thin over time, and sooner or later major splits can occur without warning in the seams of even the very best of friends. It’s bound to happen. Just the same, it was sad to say a last farewell today.
Favorite friends have special bonds. You know, fluid relationships that fit your lifestyle like a glove. Just to be seen with them can enhance your reputation and taste in friends. The loss can be traumatic. Not that this one was, but just the same, replacing it isn’t easy.
I think about our times together. We were always circumspect, tight-lipped about exploits, but age does strange things. The threads of our makeup get weak, brittle. You might say that my friend’s zipper became faulty and unpredictable, subject to revealing secrets best kept under wraps. I couldn’t take the risk of a major falling out, no, not in public. So, we chose our rendezvous carefully. Beach walking with my dog was safe.
But there was that time at the post office. Everybody sees you at the post office sooner or later. But on a particular day, my friend embarrassed me. Unintentionally, of course, but these things can happen, and they always tend to send the wrong message, especially when one’s compromised. My elderly neighbor never again asked me to take packages to her car.
Along the way my friend lost flash and shine, replaced by a faded dull luster, out of style and sort of out-of-step with life. Keeping up with the Jones’ was not a priority anymore, and I felt funny being seen in public except out-of-the-way place like auto repair shops.
Don’t feel sorry for my friend who enjoyed life to the full. There were parties to attend, high-level meetings to conduct, big deals to conclude. Always comfortable in public gatherings, boldly sitting on the sinner’s second-row front pew in church.
Like all of us, age takes its toll. Joy in the old days was no longer important and remaining at home, on the porch or playing with the dog was sufficient. I never offered the option of being ‘put down’ like the worn-out family dog. Maybe it would have been appealing.
But who doesn’t look for ‘another’ day, another hour, even another breath. The devil we know is preferable to the devil we don’t know. So, we hang on waiting, waiting, waiting. My friend never complained.
An easy passing is certainly preferable…suddenly and without warning. And that’s how it went. No warning, it just happened. It was time to go, I guess. And who knows when time’s up? Not you, not me. I’m glad I was there.
There was no drama, nothing traumatic, just the decisive break that ended it all. Quick, efficient, over. I looked at my friend, lying there all spread out and lifeless like some cast-off relic of another era. I was sad, but, hey, life goes on.
Arrangements are in the process of formalization, and I’m about to write a respectful obituary to eulogize the passing of my favorite friend: a pair of chino jeans.
Join me in the final viewing as they hang there. The unfortunate location of the split might fit the chino’s iconoclastic last words and flip-off to the label that reads, “Made in China.”
***
Treat your old friends with respect. After all, what would life be without having known them?
Bud Hearn
March 27, 2023