Goodnight Newel...

We live in such interesting times. We can follow news--not just national, or international news, but news of family and friends--in real time. Instantly, we can know not only the location of loved ones, but with a digital message, how people are doing, how they feel, even what they're eating. And we navigate our lives as if this has always been the case, as if communicating with others anywhere on the planet with only a slight delay for a signal to bounce around the curvature of the earth is as normal as breathing.

We know of weddings, births, goals met, games won, lives enriched.

We also know the moment loved ones pass.

For there's opposition in all things.

Today I learned a man I've known almost all my life passed away. He's the father of my dear friends, a patriarch of a family that, at times, I felt as close to as my own. And I morn with them.

As is the case with many relationships, seeing them, talking with them--sharing their company, has not happened in years. But the time apart melts with the power of memory. I can easily recall the times spent in my friend's home, a structure bordered by road and stream, a home that if you look at it today, it's difficult to imagine raising five children in it because it's so small. But they did. I remember the kitchen transitioned to the living room and beyond, bedrooms. It was the living room where the guitar lay waiting patiently for its owner to pick it up and lovingly, respectfully, create music, a physical manifestation of the home's soul.

I remember also a story, told by the oldest son, of a time when he called upon his father to help him unfreeze a frozen car door lock. The adventure involved, among other things, a hair dryer, and an Exit sign in parking garage. Though I wasn't there, the telling of the experience brought me to tears, not only because of the hilarity of if all, but because imagining such a brilliant man and son using their combined intelligence not finding ultimate success was truly funny, honest, naked comedy.

Even though I've gone through what my friend's family is experiencing now, everyone's reaction to the passing of a parent is different. They, along with me and my siblings, are now without parents, both having left. It opens a chapter all will face if we but live long enough. So I join hundreds, if not thousands of others--both here and beyond--who simultaneously morn and celebrate the life of a good, honest, decent, brilliant man, a man for whom there will be shed both tears of pain and of joy.

For there is opposition in all things.

Goodnight Newel.

"Hyggeligt" Night With Friends...

I got a text earlier this evening from a good friend. He and his family were in town and wondered if I wanted to come over to his sister's house and hang out.

Ah...yeah!

Matt and family was here from the midwest. They're visiting family and friends. The get together was quickly assembled. It was, in a word, cozy. The Danes have a name for cozy. It's called "hygge" and a cozy evening is "hyggeligt." It's such a perfect word and there's really nothing that compares in English. If I had to describe hygge, imagine sitting in a room in the evening, lights lowered--not blaring or overpowering--perhaps a small fire in the fireplace, and with a winter wind blowing outside, you're sitting in a comfortable chair maybe engulfed in a warm blanket drinking tea or hot chocolate chatting with loved ones. That's hygge and it's a wonderful thing.

Of course, you don't have to have all those things to have a hyggeligt evening. We were missing a fire, a winter wind blowing outside, blankets, or warm beverages, but we did have the most important thing--spending time with loved ones, chatting about life, about jobs, family, movies, hobbies, books, and music. We did that tonight. It was great.

When you're young--high school, college-aged--you have a lot of time to just hang out. We would go to friends's homes and talk, or go to a restaurant, spend time with each other, and talk. All that time was not wasted; it was well spent. I think it would be hard to explain to me back then that in the future, doing that same thing--just hanging out--would be so seldom done, and so richly enjoyed. Thanks Matt, Melissa, Darin, Lisa, Amy, Chase, and the kids for a hyggeligt time.

And they even had a Danish chandelier.

Happy Birthday, Matt!

It's my friend's birthday today. Thanks to Facebook, I am reminded of several friend's birthdays. I've written about this friend before, and I think I've even taken the opportunity of a blog post to wish him a happy birthday. I'll have to check the achieves. 

But this year, is a big birthday year for several of my friends. Some have already passed this milestone, the one my friend is experiencing today. It's one I'll be experiencing in eighteen days.

Today Matt turns fifty-years old.

Turning fifty has always held a fascination for me, and maybe it does for everyone. For me I remember looking at my father's headstone and thinking, he lived from 1924 to 1974--he was fifty-years old when he died. Actually, he never made it to fifty--he was about ten months shy of that mark. Half a century is a long time. It means my friend survived the childhood years filled with riding bicycles without helmets and taking long family trips to Idaho and beyond without wearing a seatbelt. 

It means he survived those awkward teenage years (personally, I believe any child that survives jr. high school should get a monetary prize--something in the hundreds of dollars would be fitting...). He survived learning to drive a car, and dating, going to high school dances and having late-night video and pizza parties in friend's basements.

He survived his twenties when life got real, his thirties when life got more real and his forties when the perspective of life takes on new meaning as one realizes there's probably less years ahead than what's behind.

Through it all, Matt's been a true friend. We used to run around a little track painted on the black top at the local elementary school together. We ran track in jr. high and high school together. We roomed together in college and we've seen the highs and lows of each other through the years. He was even the Best Man at my wedding. We've talked about running, religion, girls then women (not necessarily in that order...) and, it seems, everything in between. And I miss those days and those talks.

Matt, I don't know what's going through your mind today, but I hope it's filled with good friends, delicious food and family that loves you. I wish I could be there to offer happy birthday greetings in person, but it's not to be. I'm glad I've known you for forty-five of those fifty years. Here's to at least that many more!

Happy Birthday, Clif...Thanks For The Memories!

January 16th...my friend's birthday. I don't know why I remember the day so well. Maybe because it's the week after my wife's birthday (and, for the record, I remember her birthday every year, too--and I know why I remember that day...). Maybe I remember my friend's birthday because the first Gulf War began on this day in 1991, the same day he and I went to a Paul Simon concert in the old Salt Palace.

Maybe it's because my friend is such a quality person.

Yup...I'll go with that.

 

Thinking of him and thinking this would be the subject of tonight's blog post, I dusted off the old yearbook and took a trip down memory lane. This is a picture of the high school track team my senior year. It pretty much looks live every other track team picture in every other yearbook from 1984.

My friend, who's birthday is today, is the tall one sitting next to the guy with the great hair and the Hacky Sack t-shirt, which, by the way, I silkscreened myself in art class. Those were good days with good friends. My friend now lives in the Northwest, a great father, husband and friend.

Happy birthday, Clif! Stay solid!