Farewell and December

Yesterday, sunny and bitterly cold, began for us with the funeral of a neighbor. We weren't coffee klatch neighbors. We were talk to each other at the mailbox or walking down the street or while working in the yard neighbors. We knew some big things about each other’s lives, and lots of little ones. We were always happy to see Phil, and he always seemed to feel the same about us. When we got the news he had passed, it came as such a shock. He wasn’t a spring chicken anymore, having achieved octogenarian status. But in the thirteen years we’d known him, he always seemed the same. Friendly, chatty, warm, with a variety of aches and pains that he acknowledged but just as quickly brushed aside. Now there’s an empty space, a hollow feeling, not having him next door. Difficult to believe he won’t come down the road tomorrow and stop to talk. There was a deep comfort in his constancy. Phil will be missed and remembered by so many.
Today, sunny and cold again, the most appropriate music is George Winston’s album “December”. Contemplative, calming, Winston’s exquisitely beautiful piano solos are also uplifting and a little Christmas-y.
:: Enjoy and be well.