There's an idea floating around. It tickled my ear and I followed it because it makes sense to me.

Instead of waiting until our loved ones leave us, could we tell them, while they still have ears to hear, clearly, the why and how we love them? Could we have a gathering of souls to celebrate one life whose expiration date is visible, whose bar code is fading, who, as my friend John says, has a rip in his space suit? 

He does, my friend John. He has a rip in his space suit, but he's still suited up and his face is tilted toward the sun, and he's still writing. God, is he a good writer.

I have only four of his pieces, shared with me over the past four years, but a mutual friend is getting a thumb drive full of many more of John's pieces so we, his writing community, can peruse, savor, read, and relish his style, breadth, depth, and the scope of his prowess on the page. 

John is a teacher, a synthesizer of wisdom won by living through hard times. His writing leaps off the page to comfort, question, hold accountable, or point out the delicacy of nature's beauty, or intricacies of the heart.

The plan is to meet in a cozy home and be together, reading from his work or from our own work.  We'll talk truthfully, raise a glass, hug, laugh, reminisce. Is crying aloud allowed? I don't think there are any rules. Mustn't be rules. No rules allowed, that is the first rule.

This song keeps playing in my head. It's written by Capote and Arlen and Barbra Streisand sings it on her People Album.

Don't like good byes, tears or sighs, 
I'm not too good at leavin' time,
I've got no taste for grievin' time, 
      no, no, no, no, not me.

You've been my dear one, ever my near one, 
I never thought that you would find 
another lover different kind, 
       but it came to be...

I presume John's going dancing with the angels while we struggle on below. It won't be as bright a world when he takes his light from it and from us. Good thing we've got night vision goggles and can always find his heart beating on the pages of his poems and recollections of adventures he had down here. 

Phoooey! I want to mend his space suit, kick Charlie to the curb in a far-away galaxy. Charlie is what he calls the cancer that's been his closest companion these past two or three years. I hate Charlie.

I'm glad we get to gather together whether the weather be fine as a feather but further more I want MORE. More time, please. More time with our friend. 

*poof* 

Hate good byes.