Out of the blue....on a day I was blue.....came a bowl that was blue. Delicate and finely crafted, it arrived at my office this morning, in a box marked "Personal" and "Fragile". It was a gift from my friend's family. My friend that passed away in July.
Fred.
Baby Girl has asked me why I haven't written about Fred. I couldn't. It was too Personal. I was too Fragile.
Fred was my first love. We met in College. Oddly enough, we had grown up in the same town - his youngest sister was my childhood friend, yet our paths never crossed. I was shy, quiet, naive and sad.
He was Fred......Unbelievably Handsome, Wickedly Funny, Incredibly Talented, and sad. My Mother had just died.....He was just out of the Service.....Off again, On again, after a couple of years we split for good - knowing that the sad places in each of our souls only fed off of the other, making us worse. Amazingly enough, we were able to put the Romance to the side, and over the course of time, he became one of my closest, most enduring friends. I am blessed with a Husband who was never threatened by this friendship...John liked Fred too, and he respected the bond that had been built in our almost 35 years together.
Last spring, Fred fell ill. Cancer. It was quick, and brutal, and relentless. He gave me the greatest gift ever, by trusting me with his illness....his hospitalizations....his decline....his pain.....his Funeral.
The term Pole Axed may have been invented just for that day last July, when I learned that he had slipped away in the early morning hours, and then shortly thereafter, when I found out that he wanted ME to plan his funeral...to speak the last words over his beautiful, troubled, wonderful, burdened life.
Those days took more out of me than any since December of 1978, when my Mother died, and I still feel their effects.
It is Autumn....a time of change....when nature prepares itself for the onslaught of Winter. I feel like I am entering my Autumn. Gone are the halcyon days of the summer of life, when your family was new, your Children were small, and the future stretched before you like gifts under the Christmas Tree in the first week of December.
I am a MidLife Wife...bandying terms about like "downsizing", "Streamlining", "simplifying" - watching my Children....my Young Adults, one by one look to their futures - while I gaze, from the heights of Autumn, back at the seasons past.
So on this day....out of the blue, when I am blue, gazing at a bowl that is blue, I will remind myself that Autumn and Winter are my favorite time of year....the air is bracing, the sky is brilliant. There are festivals and Celebrations - sacred Holidays and beautifully wrapped gifts. There is adventure and coziness, and gathering of loved ones. If my life should run parallel to the seasons, there is much goodness yet to anticipate.
The Blue Bowl sits on my kitchen table, surrounded by the last of my red Zinnias, Beeswax candles and feathers. Every time I look at it, I will remember Fred, and his family. I will remember the gifts and lessons that He left me with....the Girlfriends he reconnected me with after more than 30 years - the YaYa's.....the reminder that life is a gift - fleeting and rare.....Personal.....Fragile.... delicate, finely crafted, and an object of great beauty.
