OLD FRIEND (in Memorium)
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We found the site of our old Kingdom Hall--no longer a place of cult activity--unless the electric supply business has a dark side.
All those meetings, songs, conversations! Gone.
We stood outside in that eerie driveway and did a 360 slow turn with golden sunshine pouring over us and big old smiles, peeling back the years.
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My oldest friend, Quentin, and I realized we'd been on quite a life journey and few good times remained at the bottom of life's barrel.
Somehow we both knew...THIS day is our last spent together. Two friends, human fossils in a washed up creek bed for paleontologists to ponder.
Well--we'd make the most of it.
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We had driven clear across town to the Polytechnic part of Ft.Worth where we'd spent our youth knocking about.
These magical locations of Jehovah's Witness picnics, knocking on doors offering Watchtower and Awake! magazines with spiritual "brothers"-- friends...it was nostalgia straight to the bone.
None of those cult friendships existed any longer. We'd both been shunned. We had each other--more than compensating, I'll tell you for certain.
it should have been easy to find these locations--they weren't. Things change, you see. Oh, how they change!
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This day's adventure was certainly bittersweet.
We'd stood like jumpers on a ledge surveying the downward path before impact. Old age contemplating inevitability.
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We laughed.
We laughed too much. It hurt in more than one way.
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Quentin had a coughing fit and had to collect himself at one point.
Our thoughts flew in all directions.
There were, of course, the girls we had crushes on, the ones who got away--we spoke the names of those beautiful dreams like a priest recites a heartfelt prayer.
The Sisters from the Dallas congregations drove over to the happy hunting grounds of Ft. Worth congregations. Everybody eventually dated everybody else. Mix and match.
Dating worldly teens was strictly forbidden, you see.
There were consequences! Way too young marriages, for one thing. A life of shlepping drudgery waiting on a New World paradise which never arrived.
Everybody we knew made sacrifices until we ran out of excuses and went off on our own. Most of them stayed rooted waiting on Armageddon. They wait still...
A hero's journey of innocence had zig-zagged off the yellow brick road. None of any of it turned out as expected.
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"Remember the time..." Yes, we certainly did. Accurately? Well, maybe--maybe not.
We lived in each other's memory, supplying missing evidence how once we'd lived with an eternity of tomorrow's stretching like a fabled river in front of us.
There were sweet memories. Good friends bond that way.
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More than a few shared tears that day.
Sweet tears; not the bitter ones.
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At day's end, like a cowpoke with swollen feet tugging on narrow boots, Quentin huffed and grunted into his vehicle. We paused at that moment and stared at each other one last time.
By god, we knew it was THE last time, we did.
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"I love you, my friend."
"I love you too."
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The sunset arrived and night fell. I found myself in my bed staring at shadows on my ceiling.
"We're all shadows now," I whispered to myself.
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I cherish that day Quentin and I shared like a family heirloom.
So, once more I turn that day in my mind so's it catches the sun just so and gleams ever brightly. Medicine for Melancholy Ray Bradbury would call it.
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Friends and time itself dissolve like marvelous lumps of sugar in a robust cup of life itself, sweetening the flavor with every sip.
I still love you, Q.
Always will.
