No, No, No; You can't take that Away from me

The way you sip your tea. I remember all that

So your life is going fine and so it goes. The usual pains, the bills, the overeating and the longing. Not heavy breathing longing like you had a lot of hormones and you were 16, but the yearning for simpler times when you had all your faculties and health you took for granted. So as I said, your life is going on in measured steps and you are in that numbed state of contentment when the rug is pulled out from under you and you fall down 70 flights of stairs while standing in a patio home.

Your childhood best friend lets you know she is dying, She is not next door but removed by 2000, miles and 42 years. You know that her death will take like Dorothy's tornado in the Wizard of Oz, everything you are and have always known, whirl you around and deposit you befuddled somewhere else without anchor.

Suddenly you are the rock and foundation for each other you hadn't been in years. You are living the movie "Beaches" and loving the process but not the finale.

Maybe it is a good thing to stop and really look around and say what did my lifetime mean? I am the sum of so many parts. My childhood and young adulthood are long gone. But those memories of carefree youth with all my loved ones around me; no death, no pain and unfilled dreams to color the horizon.

Maybe Susan and I should rejoice in this reunion for however long it lasts and just continue to say I am so blessed that you were and are still part of my life.