And so it goes....

Just heard about the passing yesterday of a parent of a dear high school friend. Another piece of my life history is gone but nothing compared to what he's lost.

In four years of high school I had four friends I could always count on and hung out with. I'm still in touch with all of them. Heck, the guy who just lost his dad does my taxes. Now, I'm the only one, at this time, who still has both parents. One still has his mom and the remaining three, in a sad joke, are orphans. All of these parents...still here and those gone....raised the five of us boys in some form or fashion. In many ways they could be surrogate parents and on some late night or weekend afternoon the teenagers we were could tell them of problems or insights we wouldn't tell our own parents. They fed us, supported us, and sometimes had to discipline us. And though we wouldn't see them near as much after we'd gone to college and beyond, we knew they'd have our back if need be and that they always wanted to know if we were doing well in our lives.

And every time we lose one of these valuable people we have to remember to pass on whatever they gave us to someone else. It keeps them alive in our hearts. They made us better people.

I spoke to my friend only a couple of hours before his dad passed. It was mostly about taxes and a form I needed to find. Then I mentioned seeing on Facebook some photos of him hanging with his grandson last Sunday. "Yeah, I thought I'd take the afternoon off and spend some time with him. We had fun." I told him that was nice to hear. And it really was, and more so now.