LOSING FRIENDS

I remember that my mother-in-law once said that living a long life meant having to suffer through the loss of many friends. We’re now getting to that age. This past weekend we attended a memorial service for a man whom the genius had known since college days and whose wife I have known since childhood.

The man had been the quarterback at Vanderbilt during the fifties and had also been the engineering lab partner of the genius. His wife, Dot, had attended church with me as a child and was a year ahead of me in high school. At one time after we had both married she and I had taught a Sunday school class of four year olds together. But when we joined our “new” church several years ago, she and her husband were one of the first couples to welcome us. Over the past few years we have become close again, going out to brunch after church and sitting together at the Wednesday night dinners. So it has been very sad losing a friend.

My sister MA and her husband live in a community with many other retirees and it seems like they lose someone all the time. When they first moved there about ten years ago and then BJ and her husband followed suit two years later, they tried to talk us into doing the same. But one of the first things I thought about besides leaving my children and grandchildren was getting to know people and then losing them to death or a debilitating illness. That may sound selfish, but I just didn’t want to put myself through that.

Besides, as I told her at the time, “This place has too many old people, too many Yankees, and too many UT (University of Tennessee) fans.”

Of course, I was kidding, so if you are old or live outside of the South (that’s the true definition of a Yankee), don’t take offense. I don’t care if I offend UT fans.