Rick

my friend rick died today.

he'd been having chest pains on monday, went to his doctor. doctor told him to go directly to the hospital. rick decided he "had some things to do", and went home first. he collapsed there. they started his heart back up on the way to the hospital. his body was alive for this last week, but we never knew if he was there. we all surrounded him for the past week: his family, his friends, his coworkers. we all surrounded him, loved him, told him we were angry with him, told him we loved him, told him we wanted him to come back to us, to share in this life with us some more. told him we love the world that has him in it, his laughter, his lovely crow's feet that accompany his laughter, his sparkling eyes. his delight in crudities, his inexplicable, laughing attempts to lure everyone he knew to go see the midgets at the local strip club, despite his being openly gay. told him we were sorry for this thing, sorry for that thing. i told him i was sorry i didn't go see him last thursday when he asked me to come by with the boy for a visit at my old job. told him i didn't have a good reason for not going to see him that day, i could have fit it easily into my day, i just decided to do errands, giving up my last chance to see him, talk to him, the last chance for him to know my boy, to share in all of his joie de vivre. told him it meant a lot to me that he'd asked me to come in, knowing, as i do, that that is a special request coming from him.

our shared friend told me the news tonight.

my dad and his dog, tennessee, came up for a visit today, our monthly house-hunting day. just before leaving the house, i discovered a peculiar plumbing situation in the basement, and we ended up spending our whole visit bailing out sewage and calling plumbers, excavators, etc. at one point in the afternoon, as i was leaning out the basement window, passing a sump pump back and forth with the plumber, trying to control flowing water outside and inside the house at the same time, our yard dug up into muddy piles of earth and snow, no one knowing if our basement was soon going to be under 3 inches of sewage, and rick in my heart all the while, my attention was drawn past the gathered men to the apple boughs by the porch. there was a little dark-eyed junco, flitting about the bough. it was so perfect: dark above, light below, perfectly clean movements, joyful little creature. a simple bird in a tree. it was such a site of perfection, a place and moment of pure beauty on the earth, in the midst of mess and grief.

i held the boy as i cried tonight. i sang rick onward, sang thanks for his life, for his having a community who loves him, for the gift of having walked for a time beside him, for his passing back to creator. the boy sat in my lap, playing quietly. every once in a while, he reached his hand up and put his fingers inside my mouth. his own little gesture, letting me know we were still together.