I don’t normally post on Saturday, but I have to today. It’s odd. Because, if I don’t, in some way I’ll feel disloyal.
I know that’s silly. Just like I know the twinge of guilt I feel when I don’t stop by the cemetery is silly.
He’s not there. He hasn’t been for 38 years.
Thirty. Eight. Years.
The memory is still vivid. The phone call while I was on tour in Michigan. Two of my best friends. One on either side of me. Standing with me. Praying for me.
The long flight home and the weirdness of what was the Washington National Airport in the 1970s.
It wasn’t supposed to happen. Not then. Not that soon.
But it did.
My world changed forever with that phone call. I won’t speculate on how or about what things might have been different because that gets us nowhere. I just wish I’d had the chance to find out.
I’ve written before that the sting has lessened over the years, and it has. But the dull ache of knowing we lost him too soon will always be there.
Life goes on, and he’s not the only one I’ve lost. And there will be more losses.
But I’ll always remember August 1, 1978 as the day I lost him.
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