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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (65632)	10/25/2004 11:55:09 PM
From: Crocodile	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

The little platoon we take through life gets smaller, and shared memories become ours alone. A couple of weeks ago, I had lunch with a few friends that I've known for many years. We were discussing how it is that, at some point in life, it's like the wind has shifted and there's a change in the weather. Over the past couple of months, I've lost two old friends to cancer, another to a stroke (all three were in their early 50s), and a young friend in a vehicle accident. Just now, things are feeling decidedly like late autumn. Fortunately, spring always comes around again. These days, I don't worry too much about convention. New acquaintances are soon invited to come out on the river, or to wander along on the trails. Maybe that's how we compensate for the circle which would otherwise grow a little smaller with each passing year.

To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (65632)	10/26/2004 7:32:13 AM
From: Rambi	Respond to of 71178

Hey Freddie, Thank you. While the memories are ours alone, sharing them here has rewarded me tenfold with notes from old friends like you. When my mother died, her aloneness during the process hit me very hard. All I could do was hold her hand while she floated further and further away and it felt like so little. I got the loveliest note after from a friend of Dan's, who had just had his third child the same day she died. He wrote about the baby entering the world so alone, though not quietly and slowly but lustily and wailing loudly, and how, when they handed it to him to hold, he immediately took its hand, wanting to somehow communicate that he was there now, to lead it into the world, and how when I held my mother's hand as she left, it was ultimately the best and all we can do. We need to remember to hold each others' hands more in between those extremes, too.