Eulogy

The air was warm and thick and moist and the cloud cover dense. I knew I had to get out there before it either rained or the sun broke through and heated the day further, no excuses. There are days when the trail feels as if it’s twenty miles long rather than the two and a quarter that delivers me to the northern parking area where I’ll turn and head back. This was certainly one of those days. As I began I tried to ignore the flames that were erupting in various locations of my digestive system.
The headings were the only readable parts of the new factoids that had been installed along the wooded side of the trail, square signs mounted to three and a half inch square, pressure treated posts, with color renderings and reproductions of artwork that had been generated locally. It’s almost as if the trail was being gentrified, upgraded to tourist status by the state, with the occasional berms along the way sharing the names of the “adopters” on low, blue, metal signs, one of which was a bit of an embarrassment since the weeds had taken over.
My legs felt as strong as they ever have but my breathing was labored, my lungs struggling to absorb all of that moisture along with the oxygen.

As I ran I began to think of that dinner that we never shared. We’d discussed it again after the Tuesday writing workshop, after I’d deposited what he admiringly described as his cursed laptop into the back seat of his car, the red Subaru sedan with the dented bumper, as I’d been doing for several weeks now. We were close to setting an actual date. I was too busy that week, too busy for friendship, imagine, and the next I’d be working in Vegas, so we would have to wait just a little longer, agreeing that we probably had quite a bit to talk about.
I didn’t find out until I checked my email at the hotel’s business office Saturday morning that he had passed the very next day after that conversation. The dinner would never take place, nor would any further conversations, I was devastated. It’s so rare that we find someone who we can connect with, someone so similar in tone and thought. Even the thirty plus years differing our ages seemed to evaporate when we spoke. I suddenly felt cheated, as if this relationship had been taken away before it had begun, our mutual admiration society never even submitting its charter application.
I felt badly for his wife and our little community as a whole. He was a brilliant man, filled with knowledge and wisdom of eighty some odd years and even in command of the Russian language when suddenly called upon. He said it was air force Russian but we knew better.
The last story that he read took us back to another era, another time when men played cards and drank bourbon and lemonade in t-shirts on warm, summer evenings on the porches of row houses in the city. It was a beautifully painted portrait, detailed with an understatement that imbued all of the colors and sounds and smells without the need for specifics.
It’s selfish, but this is only the second time in my life that I’ve lost someone who really meant something to me. Distant relatives passed, funerals were attended; I’ve gone through the motions of grieving, the handles of many caskets gripped tightly in my hand, once or twice even feeling hurt by the loss. The tears that are shed are not over the state of the deceased, but over our own loss, and although I can’t be absolutely certain, I have my doubts that I’ll be the one who is upset when I’m being lowered into the ground.

I hadn’t noticed the newly planted maples on my way out, only now that I was approaching three miles and the final leg of this particular course. I suppose I’d been too busy trying to read the new informational signs. They weren’t small; maybe twelve feet, full of leaves, but they were definitely recent additions to the grassy area between the trail and the highway, the soil around the roots still aerated and uncompressed.
The crayfish were out as well, crawling from the nearby creek on occasion. I have no clue why they do this.
When I reached the end and walked back to my car I thought again of the friend that I never really had but will certainly always have through my memory of his wit, his voice, his stories and that rare and indefinable connection that, if we are very, very lucky, we are privileged to share, even for a moment, with another human being.