Losing Another Part of My Childhood

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A snowy day in another January many years ago. Matt is second from right.

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Life happens in waves.

Life is also, as John Lennon observed, "what happens while you're busy making other plans."

With that in mind, I have been writing a lot about death lately. I didn't plan it that way. It's just how it has worked out.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, I wrote about the death of my favorite journalism professor.

There have been other times when I have been touched personally by death but not lately — until this week. Death is a topic no writer can avoid for long, though. Shortly before Thanksgiving Charles Manson died. A few days ago the mastermind of the notorious 1964 triple slayings in Mississippi died.

As I say, I have enjoyed a respite from personal experience with death — but that never lasts.

And my vacation from the deaths of personal acquaintances ended this week when I learned that a fellow who grew up near me in Central Arkansas passed away. I don't know the specifics, but I have heard it was heart related.

We were friends. I can't say we were best friends or anything like that. He was about six months older, which isn't a lot, even when you're kids and months seem like years — but, because of when our birthdays fell on the calendar, he was a year ahead of me in school, and so he graduated the year before I did. I always felt like that was a bit of a barrier between us as we got older. We went to school each day with different classmates. We had different teachers.

Still we were practically neighbors. We lived in the country — where neighbors has a different meaning than it does in a city or town. We didn't live in houses that were so close that we could see each other's front doors. You had to do some walking through tree–filled hillsides to get from one to the other.

But we were neighbors. My brother and I played with Matt and his younger brother in the afternoons. Our parents socialized regularly.

Would we have done that if we had lived in town? I don't know. Options tend to be much more limited when you live in the country.

But what might have been is speculation. What was — well, that is a matter of fact.

And since I learned of Matt's death, my thoughts keep returning to memories of my childhood — and what was.

Matt's father built a treehouse that we kids used a lot in the summer. It gets hot and humid in Arkansas in the summer, but we spent many summer nights in that treehouse, playing card games and doing things that kids do when the seemingly limitless free time of summer stretches out before them. Heat and humidity was a small price to pay for all that freedom.

Sometimes the four of us would spend the night in that treehouse. We would lug our sleeping bags up there, then we would sleep on top of them because it was too suffocating to try to sleep inside our sleeping bags.

That treehouse was kind of like a junior frat house, though. We didn't do much sleeping there, and things tended to get broken. Mostly we played cards — and Monopoly — by the light of a lantern or told ghost stories.

When it was quiet in the treehouse, I would sit and let the light summer breeze wash over me, and I would look at the stars sparkling in the sky and the shimmering moon.

We all learned to ride bicycles at about the same time, and that really was like being set free. That was the first time that we were truly mobile, and from that moment on if we were going anywhere we were on our bikes. No longer did we need someone to take us to a neighbor's house a couple of miles down the road. We could get on our bikes and take ourselves there.

Later on, of course, cars replaced bikes, and our journeys took us even farther from home. But that came later.

Our parents and their vehicles still had a place in our lives. We rarely got snow in Central Arkansas, but when we did, we usually needed Matt's father's truck to take us to school. I remember all of us piling into the small cab of that truck (this was before the days of club cabs) on winter mornings and listening to his tape of Charley Pride's greatest hits as we rode into town.

Matt's family moved to Arkansas from Texas when he was in elementary school, and there was always friction between us when the Arkansas Razorbacks played the Texas Longhorns in anything — but especially football. Both our loyalties were to the places where our roots were.

So it was ironic that Matt stayed in my hometown the rest of his life — and I moved to Texas.

Sports always played a prominent role in our relationship. When we were about 8 or 9, we collected and swapped baseball cards and football cards — as many boys did (and, I presume, still do). We usually watched major sports events together, and we played the games as best we could.

Folks in town had the advantage over us in the latter. They had empty lots and open fields in which to play. We lived in the country, which was rocky and hilly. If we wanted to play touch football, we had to do it in the dirt road that slithered past our homes. That was not a problem, though. People seldom drove along that road in those days, and we could usually hear cars coming long before they reached us, giving us time to clear off the road until they went past.

I remember one unusually snowy winter that brought a significant snowfall, not just the usual dusting, and we couldn't wait to play football in it — because we could actually play tackle football for a change.

We soon learned that playing football in snow is a lot colder and wetter than it looks on TV. But when we had had enough, we went to one of our homes — where there would be tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches to warm us up.

Matt was a much better athlete than I was. He played youth baseball with my brother (who was also a better athlete than I was), and I remember watching his games with a touch of envy. Matt looked like a big–league ballplayer in his Little League uniform, whether he was playing in a game or getting a snow cone between games.

As I understand it, Matt coached youth baseball after he grew up.

Matt and I seldom saw each other as adults. The news of Matt's death, consequently, triggers no memories of my adult years — it seems to me that the last time I saw Matt was at my high school class' fifth reunion (Matt wasn't in my class, but his wife was) — but plenty of memories of my childhood.

While I am mourning the loss of my childhood friend, I am also mourning the inevitable loss of my childhood. Matt wasn't my first childhood friend to die — and, unless I'm the next one to go, he certainly won't be the last.

But it is a stark reminder of the constant state of change in which we all must exist.

It is also a reminder that life is short, much too short to not do the things you love. Matt's life was shorter than I ever would have expected when we were growing up. I hope he spent it doing things he loved to do.

And I hope I do the things I love to do before my time on this planet runs out.

'I Still Laugh When I Am Able ...'

Today is the birthday of my childhood friend Phyllis.

It's the second one since she passed away in August 2010.

I still miss her, as so many others do, but the pain has been receding for me since this day last year. I guess I was more melancholy then. I think I'm doing better now. It was, after all, barely two months since my friend had died. I was still grieving.

I think of Phyllis nearly every day — which is the most I can truthfully say about almost everyone I have lost except my mother (I think of her every day) — and, on this day, I kind of feel the way a mutual friend of ours apparently does.

On Facebook earlier today, he posted this:

"I miss you so freakin' much. Got that clock fixed you and Hawk gave me. I still laugh when I am able ..."

That, as I have mentioned before, may be the most enduring memory I have of Phyllis — the laughter. Even at the most somber points of my life, she could make me laugh.

And she would join in with a laugh of her own that made you feel warm all over like hot chocolate on a bitter winter day.

There must be others on this planet who can make you feel that way, but, if there are, I doubt that I will ever meet them. I do not expect to have that kind of laughter in my life again.

Phyllis was a laughter enabler. She could coax it from you, whether you wanted it to be coaxed or not.

It was just one of her many talents.

I, too, still laugh when I am able. I'm just not able as often as I once was.

I Still Miss You

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"I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces all day through
In that small café, the park across the way
The children's carousel, the chestnut trees, the wishing well

"I'll be seeing you in every lovely summer's day
In everything that's light and gay
I'll always think of you that way
I'll find you in the mornin' sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you."

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It's been a year now, and there are times when I still can't get my mind completely around it.

My friend Phyllis died a year ago today.

Her birthday rolled around a couple of months after she died, and I wrote at that time of how much I missed her. Not a lot has changed.

We met in sixth grade. We lost touch at times — as even the best of friends will do — and we didn't always see eye to eye on things — again, as even the best of friends do — but we were always friends. That never changed, and we will continue to be friends until I draw my last breath.

You see, death (or so I have heard it said) does not mean the end of a friendship. At least, until both of the friends are no more. I'm glad I still have the memories I have. As long as those memories exist, so does Phyllis.

When I die, if there is an afterlife, I suppose Phyllis and I will pick up where we left off. Under those conditions, I guess, time and space will no longer be barriers.

The existence of the afterlife is really a separate discussion, though, and I am not as confident of it as I once was. I will discuss it with anyone who wants to discuss it, and I will listen respectfully to anything that anyone has to say on the subject — but not today.

Today, my thoughts are of Phyllis and how much I have missed her these last 12 months.

I have written about Phyllis on several occasions, in this blog and in the others that I write. I never know when — or why — I may be reminded of her, inspired by her. I only know that I am.

And I want others to know that she has inspired me. That's why I put these thoughts out here.

If I die unexpectedly, these writings will be here indefinitely, I suppose. If people stumble onto something I have written about Phyllis — or anyone else — it may be nothing more than a digital "Kilroy Was Here" to most.

But, in truth, it is my way of saying that I was here — and so was Phyllis and so were all the other people about whom I have written and will continue to write.

Those people brought me great joy when they were alive, and I want them to be remembered.

And the best way to do that is to remember stories.

There are lots of stories I could tell about Phyllis. But, you know, one of the pleasures of telling the old stories is having the people who were part of those stories around to reminisce about them.

Phyllis has been gone for a year now so I haven't told those stories nearly as often as I would like.

Well, most of those stories probably wouldn't mean anything to anyone else, anyway, so maybe the appropriate thing to do on this first anniversary is to reflect on what I have learned — in the last year and in my life in general.

I've been thinking a lot about the things I always thought were true. I've noticed that, as the years have gone by, things aren't as black and white as I thought when I was a child and I was learning the rules — you know what I mean, the multiplication tables, learning to tie my shoes, driving on the right side of the road, looking both ways before crossing the street, etc. The basics.

The instructions I received when I was growing up resembled those science experiments that have been conducted in classrooms for generations. The outcomes of certain actions under certain circumstances were 100% predictable.

There's a lot more gray now. I find it hard, at times, to know exactly what meaning I am supposed to draw from things anymore.

For instance ...

Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote about my friend and her relationship with her husband.

Phyllis was single until about the last 10 years of her life, then she met a man who was more than 10 years older and married him. By her account and others', it was a strong relationship, made even stronger by their shared experience of her affliction with cancer.

Her husband, who goes by the name of "Hawk" (I have always suspected that is a nickname, not a given name, but Phyllis never told me and neither has anyone else), is a Methodist minister who serves a couple of small churches in the central Arkansas county where Phyllis and I grew up.

I've never met him, but, after Phyllis died, we became friends on Facebook, and I have followed his posts there and occasionally sent him e–mails offering him encouragement as he has recovered from Phyllis' loss. Usually, I've sent such messages to him around milestone dates — holidays, birthdays, that sort of thing — but sometimes for no other reason except that I was thinking about him, hoping he was all right.

I guess I sort of felt I owed it to Phyllis.

Lately, his recovery took a turn that took me by surprise — and I haven't known how to react to it.

If you aren't familiar with Facebook, people can choose to enter all kinds of personal information, including their relationship status. They aren't required to do that. It is simply an option.

Anyway, after Phyllis died, Hawk changed his status to widowed, and it remained that way until just recently, when he changed it to in a relationship.

I've had mixed feelings about that, feelings that are hard for me to put into words, much less to understand.

It isn't that I expected Hawk to erect some kind of shrine to Phyllis and be a monk for the rest of his life. I don't believe that is what Phyllis would have wanted. (Let me qualify that by saying that I have always felt a little uncomfortable about suggesting that I know — or, for that matter, that anyone knows — what a deceased person might or might not have thought.)

There really is no rational way to look at this as some kind of betrayal — and I don't.

At the same time, though, as I say, I'm not sure how I feel. I know how much of herself Phyllis invested in that relationship, and I suppose much of my feeling stems from my deep regret that she is gone. In this past year, I have often felt cheated, deprived of what should have been.

We should have been able to enjoy the pleasures that old friends enjoy in their old age. Those were things that should have been for Phyllis. She was entitled to those things, damn it. It isn't fair that it was all snatched away from her that way. I guess it still pains me to realize that they will never be.

There were times after Phyllis and I re–connected on Facebook when Hawk had to leave her for a few days or perhaps a week to attend some sort of ministerial conference. Phyllis posted daily countdowns until his return — then, on the day he was scheduled to return, she would post giddy, schoolgirlish messages about how "my sweet Hawk" would be walking through the door in a few hours.

That was a side of Phyllis I had never seen, not even when we were teenagers together back in Conway, Ark. Back then, I knew she had the typical "crushes" girls in that age range tend to have, but she was always more serious about everything else — her studies, her grades, her music.

It sort of rounded out Phyllis for me, I guess. And I knew — as I had always known — that her devotion to the people in her life was lasting and genuine and true.

I know Hawk wasn't unfaithful to her — and isn't being unfaithful to her now. And perhaps, when I have had more time to absorb this, I will know better how to feel about it.

For now, though, all I can say is this:

I miss you, Phyllis.

They Call Him 'Chainsaw'

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When I was a child, my parents took my brother and me on several summer road trips through the eastern United States.

I think that statement requires a little context.

In the years before my brother and I came along, my parents were missionaries in Africa. While they were there, they became close friends with their colleagues. I don't know if their friends returned to America before or after my parents did, but it turned out that all their friends were in the eastern half of the continent — so, for a time, vacations meant planning trips based on who lived where.

In those days, it was entertaining simply to watch my parents unfold maps on the dining room table and plot the routes from one friend's home to another with felt–tip pens. Our starting point was our home in Conway, Ark. Our destination was Vermont, where a couple of my parents' closest friends lived. We saved money by spending the nights with friends all the way to Vermont and all the way back.

(It was a rare treat in those days for us to stay in a motel. For my brother and me, it meant being able to swim in a motel swimming pool.)

I guess I don't need to tell you that our route was never a straight line — and we must have made that trip three or four times when I was a child.

The itinerary was never the same, but this might give you an idea of what our trips were like. One year, I recall, we took kind of a northerly approach, stopping in Kentucky, then Pennsylvania, then New York, on our way to Vermont, then we took a southerly route home, stopping in Virginia, then North Carolina, then Tennessee. Each time we stayed with friends (well, the stop in New York was to visit my father's sister and her family).

I thought it was kind of cool, actually. Because of those road trips, I figured I had visited more states than just about anyone in my class at school. And, because I was born overseas, I figured it was a sure thing that I had been to more countries than any of my classmates.

To put it in Charlie Sheen lingo, I felt I was winning.

But, if I haven't already surrendered my crown (and I may have — who knows how many states my former classmates have visited since we graduated from high school?), I would probably have to turn it over to a fellow who was actually a year behind me in school — but, before 2011 is over, he may have visited more states than I have ... and he's been doing it the hard way.

His name is Jeff. He teaches physical education in Fayetteville, Ark., the town where I earned my B.A., but he grew up with me in Conway. We knew each other as children. I don't remember if we attended the same elementary school, but I know we were in Cub Scouts together.

In high school, we kind of ran in separate crowds. I was always more interested in writing, working for the school newspaper, that kind of thing. Jeff was always part of the circle of athletes, the guys who could always be seen wearing their letterman jackets or their football jerseys.

Jeff acquired a nickname when we were in school. Because of his ferocious tenacity, he earned the name Chainsaw. No matter what might stand in his way, folks said, he would rip into it like a chainsaw. No holds barred. "Straight ahead" was his attitude about, well, everything.

Our families were acquainted as well. His father and my father were colleagues at a small private college. My father taught religion and philosophy there. Jeff's father was a coach, specializing in swimming. He built a successful program that included using the college's pool to teach children in the community to swim.

Jeff was one of the youngest in a rather large family, and he was always close to his father. I remember attending the high school graduation ceremony the year Jeff graduated. His father was a member of the local school board (the middle school in my hometown now bears his name), and, that evening, he was handing the diplomas to the graduates after someone else called their names.

He shook their hands, they smiled at each other, they might exchange brief pleasantries, then it was time to give the diploma to the next one. Pretty innocuous stuff.

When Jeff's name was called and he strode across the stage, father and son embraced to a thundering, spontaneous ovation. No one in that gymnasium that night could help but be moved by the sight.

Sadly, Jeff's father passed away in 1997. I don't know the details, but I believe he suffered from some kind of respiratory disease — an ironic way for an athletic life to end.

As I say, Jeff also is involved in physical education. I have no doubt he was strongly influenced by his father's example — as he was a year ago when he was diagnosed with cancer.

Jeff's admiration for his father is evident on his Facebook page, where he attributes (falsely) his favorite quotation to his father: "Be kind to everyone because everyone you meet is fighting a battle."

(I'm sure Jeff's father said that many times — it's the kind of thing I would have expected him to say to his children — but he probably never told them that it was really Plato who was responsible for it.

(That's OK, though. I don't think Plato would have objected if Jeff's father took credit for it.)

And Jeff appears to be winning his battle with cancer. In fact, he's doing so well that he's been trying to raise awareness of leukemia and lymphoma with a cross–country bicycle ride that began about three weeks ago in Oregon.

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His friends and family have kept track of his progress through the updates and pictures he's been posting on Facebook.

An avid fisherman, Jeff has reported stopping at some rivers to do some fishing along the way. He appears to pitch his tent wherever he can — although, like my parents, he's been making some stops at friends' homes. He reported, for example, that he stopped in Boise for a few days of R&R with some friends around the Fourth of July.

Sometimes, the wind is at his back, and he makes more progress than he expected. His original goal was to cover 70 miles a day traveling at roughly 10 miles per hour, but he actually covered about 85 miles when he left the coast. "Great day in the saddle," he wrote.

"The coast of Oregon is a feast for the eyes around each bend."

Conditions continued to be favorable as he made his way through Oregon. A few days later, he wrote this: "McKenzie River. Gonna fish here today. Pedaled up the river from Corvallis yesterday 90 miles slight uphill. The weather is great. ... Slept in an old growth forest last night. ... This part of Oregon is very lush with lots of rain."

Then there are times when conditions are not so favorable. "Met my match today with the toughest climb I have had yet," he wrote last week.

"The ride down the main Salmon was nice and then once in White Bird the climb started 11 miles at 8% grade for 3200 vertical feet. The legs had a hard time responding after three days fishing in Boise, will begin my ascent over Lolo Pass tomorrow."

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His latest post on Facebook says he is in Montana now. "The big open country of SW Montana makes one feel small," he writes. "In Virginia City now."

Montana, he wrote yesterday, "gave me all I wanted and more. Got hit by a hail storm, 40 mph headwinds and got a dose of the huge country with lonely roads."

In spite of all that, he observed, "This is beautiful country."

I've never been there, but, from what I have heard, it really is.

He closes each post with his signature line — "Straight ahead. Chainsaw."

My understanding is that Jeff won't be going clear across the country. Originally, his plan was for his ride to conclude around the Kansas–Colorado border — and if that is still the plan, then I expect that he will start to move in a more southeasterly direction now, probably taking him through Wyoming and Colorado.

But his plans might have changed. And, if they have, I would recommend that he stay in the northern half of the country. It's just too hot in the central and southern states for extensive bike riding.

Whatever his plans are now, though, I just say, keep going, Chainsaw.

Straight ahead.

Tributes

It never occurred to me before.

Last summer, as you may recall, my practically lifelong friend Phyllis died. She had been living with cancer for a few years, but then she was stricken with pneumonia, and it was too much for her body to withstand.

A mutual friend of ours participated in the funeral planning. He returns to our hometown at the end of each semester to participate in commencement ceremonies at the university there, and Phyllis' death came very near the time when he would be doing that at the end of the summer session.

He spent a little more time there than normal last August, helping with the arrangements.

Anyway, he is back there now. He just arrived yesterday. The university will be holding its spring ceremonies this weekend, and he posted a notice on Facebook.

A friend informed him that a "Relay for Life" is being held in a nearby town in Phyllis' honor this weekend. I gathered from his response that he had already spoken to Phyllis' family and had been told about this event.

And it all clicked.

Of course. I've seen this before. I knew a couple of people who died of brain tumors when I was growing up, and, at some point, folks organized special events like this "Relay for Life" in their memories. Likewise, I knew some people who died of other diseases, and similar events were organized in their memories.

I suppose these events have — almost always — been intended to raise money for medical research. They also — almost always — become annual events and carry the deceased person's name.

It's a form of immortality, I suppose — I couldn't wish it for a better person even though I still wish, perhaps for selfish reasons, that she was still around.

And I'm glad her name will be remembered — even when the time comes when the people who remember her name have no memory of her.

It's been nearly a year since she died, but in that time, there have been many occasions when I have remembered things about Phyllis that I had forgotten — or, at least, haven't given a lot of thought in awhile.

She continues to influence me, at times to inspire me, in ways that neither of us ever could have dreamed when we were children in Conway, Ark.

Neither, I suppose, could we have imagined, when we saw fundraising events being named for people we had known, that one of us — and, who knows, perhaps even both of us — would be remembered in such a way, possibly long after our contemporaries have joined us.

I am glad she is being honored in this way, but I am sorry she didn't know just how many fish were caught in the wide net she cast during her life.

I guess that is the thing I find singularly sad about such tributes.

Yesterday, as I wrote in this blog, was the 16th anniversary of my mother's death. She was a first–grade teacher when she died in a flash flood — admired and mourned by many.

(She knew Phyllis when I was growing up, knew her pretty well, as I recall. Mom knew all of my friends, but some she knew better than others. We lived in the country, and she knew the kids with whom I played every day, of course, but Phyllis, like most of my classmates, lived within the city limits.

(Mom didn't see most of those friends as frequently. She was acquainted with the kids who attended our church — but Phyllis didn't belong to our church when I was growing up. Nevertheless, Mom and Phyllis gravitated to each other and became friends. I'm not sure how or when that occurred, but it did. I remember that, by the time I was in high school, I noticed Phyllis and Mom seeking each other out at school functions.)

Anyway, the last children Mom taught are old enough now to have children of their own. In a few years, they may be first–graders in the school where Mom taught for the last 12 years of her life.

Those children, obviously, never knew my mother. But they will almost surely know her name. Less than a year after she died, the school dedicated a garden on the school property to her memory.

I don't know what the garden is used for today, but the original intention, as I understood it, was for it to be a place for contemplation, for reflection, for storytelling. A sort of a "quiet place," you might say, and that, I think, would have suited Mom just fine.

It was not a playground for recess. The swings and the slides could be found on the other side of the building.

There was a sign that identified the garden and on it could be found my mother's name. Even if you only ever walked past it and never stopped, you were almost sure to absorb the name from reading the sign — in much the same way that some people who perform heroic deeds say they learned the procedures for CPR and the Heimlich maneuver by casually glancing at posters on breakroom walls.

I haven't been on those grounds in a long time, but I assume that garden is still there. If it is, I am glad that it stands as a monument to Mom.

At the same time, I have a hard time thinking of my mother as a name on a garden wall or Phyllis as the name of an annual fundraising event. They were flesh–and–blood people for me, people who continue to influence my thoughts, my life, my memories.

When I think of my mother, I don't think of the honors she received for her creative teaching techniques. I think of her dedication, of evenings I spent sitting with her at the dining room table, helping her grade papers so she would have some free time to watch TV or play with the cat.

And when I think of Phyllis, I remember laughs and moments we shared, some with other people, some with just us.

I'm sorry they're gone. I miss them every day.

And, when all is said and done, I am glad they are remembered by others.

Even if those people never met them.

Stop All The Clocks

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When I was a child, it was almost fashionable to say the Kennedy name and the word "tragic" in the same sentence.

No matter where one stood on the political spectrum, it was a conclusion with which everyone seemed to agree.

President Kennedy and his brother both had been assassinated. Their oldest sister died young in a plane crash, and their oldest brother died in World War II. And over the years, it seemed that tragedy continued to visit the Kennedy family disproportionately. It didn't always take young lives; sometimes it merely left them in shambles.

That is certainly tragic.

But the truth is, in a family that large (there were nine children in Joe and Rose Kennedy's family, and most of those children produced children of their own), there are almost bound to be a few cases of premature and/or tragic death.

I'm sure there have been other large families in America that have suffered such losses, but they didn't exist in a public spotlight. The Kennedys, of course, were and, to an extent, still are politically prominent. Their influence is reduced now, but they remain the closest thing America has to a royal family.

When I was growing up in Arkansas, a politically prominent family lived just down the road from mine. It wasn't what I would call a royal family, but there were times when it seemed to me that it aspired to be.

I have written about this family, off and on, for about 2½ years now. I first mentioned it (briefly) in the days following my high school class reunion (which I was unable to attend but I got on the class' e–mail mailing list). It was at that time that I learned that the mother in the family had died the year before.

I wrote about it here again slightly more than a year ago when the patriarch of the family, a man known as Justice Jim Johnson, died of a self–inflicted gunshot wound. He'd been suffering from serious medical problems and apparently lost all hope.

Justice Jim, as I observed at that time, was an old–fashioned segregationist who ran unsuccessfully for governor of Arkansas when his twin sons and I were in first grade. I was too young to pay attention to a politician's speech at the time, but I have heard that his rhetoric was, to put it mildly, fiery.

He hadn't really been a prominent figure in Arkansas for at least a couple of decades when he died. Nevertheless, I was stunned by the vitriol I encountered when I tried to find out more about the circumstances at Arkansas–based web sites.

I was even more stunned a few months later when I heard that one of Justice Jim's sons, David, had lost his own son in an accident.

It was the kind of pain I couldn't imagine, and I said so to David in a letter I wrote a few days after learning of his son's death from one of the members of our high school class who has taken it upon herself to notify the rest of us whenever someone dies.

At the time, it really seemed to me that the Johnson family had been visited by more tragedy in a short span of time than any family should have to face. But there were two truths, one of which was obvious (Mrs. Johnson had been in her late 70s and Mr. Johnson had been in his mid–80s when they died; I was sorry that those two people were gone, but they both lived longer than most people of their generation) and the other had yet to be revealed, even though it was partially revealed last summer when David's son died.

I don't know if that truth has been fully revealed yet, but I got at least a hint today that it is continuing to unfold.

Today, I received another e–mail from Dianne — who has done a remarkable job of keeping us informed of these developments these last few years — reporting that David has died.

I hoped that Dianne was wrong, but, in my gut, I was sure she was right. I haven't known her to be wrong about any of these deaths in nearly three years, and she wasn't wrong this time, either.

I have confirmed that, yes, my friend is dead. I don't know what happened, but I have heard that he died of liver failure or kidney failure. I suppose I will learn the details in the days ahead.

It's funny the thoughts one has at a time like this.

• I was remembering, for example, when I was in first grade. David and I were the only ones who had the same first name. Everyone else — Larry, Susan, Lisa, whatever — could be identified by their first names only, but there were two Davids and that was a bit of a problem.
  
  As an adult, I understand the dilemma the adults of that time faced. There had to be a way to distinguish between David Johnson and David Goodloe. And it was decided that David Johnson would be known as "David" and I would be known as "David G."
  
  Now, in the 1990s, having an initial attached to your name was cool. But, when I was a child in the 1960s, I didn't care for it. Being the only one in the class whose identity couldn't be expressed in my first name alone made me feel like I was being singled out.
  
  It's hard to explain any better than that.
  
  But it just didn't seem fair — or necessary — to me. Everyone called him Davy, anyway. I never understood why I couldn't simply be called David.
  
  Later in life, I called him David, and he was always gracious about it, but he seemed to prefer to be called Dave.


• It's a funny thing, too, about "identical" twins.
  
  I've never understood why people often experience a kind of confusion over the identities of twins. They look so much alike, people say.
  
  And Hollywood has done what it could to promote that concept of mistaken identity with some successful movies over the years.
  
  Well, I've known a few sets of identical twins in my life, but I can only think of one set of twins who looked so similar that it was challenging for me to tell them apart.
  
  I never had any trouble with Danny and Davy. I always knew which one was which. Their voices weren't the same at all. And one of them had a birth mark on his face, not nearly as pronounced as the one that actor Richard Thomas had but clear enough to me.
  
  No, I never had any trouble telling them apart. They were alike in many ways, but they were always two individuals to me, not parts of the same person.
  
  When I got older, I mused about that very thing. Why was it so easy for me to tell Danny and David apart? I saw a picture earlier today of the Johnson family that was probably taken around the time of their father's gubernatorial campaign.
  
  (I'm guessing it was printed originally in campaign pamphlets. Politicians often circulated photos of their families in their campaign brochures in those days.)
  
  Anyway, I couldn't tell from looking at the picture which twin was which. It was in black and white, and I couldn't see a birth mark on either of the twins. They were dressed the same and had crewcut haircuts (I remember those haircuts).
  
  So I wonder if maybe the fact that the three of us were so young when we first met played a role. It's been my experience that children are often more perceptive about things than adults think.


• And, in sort of a random, general kind of way, I've been remembering my childhood on a manmade lake outside the city limits of Conway, Ark.
  
  David, his twin brother Danny and I shared many of the same likes and dislikes. We loved the same popular TV shows, like Batman, and we incorporated them into the games we would play.
  
  David and Danny had a toy that was popular in those days called "Creepy Crawlers." You would pour a liquid substance (which you would get at a toy store, and these goops, as they were called, came in a variety of colors, which kept the toy new and interesting) into a mold and heat it on a hot plate. When it cooled, you had a rubbery spider or some other similar creature.
  
  We would combine those rubber bugs into our version of the Batman series and invent adventures of our own superheroes — Bugman and Buggy instead of Batman and Robin.
  
  Well, what do you want? We were only about 6 years old! The names we gave ourselves may not have been very creative, but I think our games were.
  
  I don't remember who was Bugman or who was Buggy. Maybe we alternated. I mean, this was kind of our version of Cops 'n' Robbers, and someone had to be the bad guy. My memory of our games is that we were always fair. We always took turns — and we probably took turns being Bugman, Buggy and the bad guy.
  
  Perhaps that is why, when I think of David and Danny and our childhood on the lake, I think of us as a threesome — the Three Musketeers, with a group identity — and not as individuals like Bugman, Buggy or the bad guy.

I'm sorry my friend is gone, I really am, but I wonder if maybe I'm grieving as much for the knowledge that that chapter in my life truly is over now. Forever.

Realistically speaking, it has been over for a long, long time. But it lived on in my memory, along with images of three little boys swimming in the lake or riding bicycles on a country road on hot summer days.

Or sitting in a sweltering Arkansas schoolroom trying to focus on multiplication tables while beads of sweat rolled effortlessly down our faces.

We experienced all things together — on occasion, we even got into trouble together — and, for some reason, I thought we always would, but now David has experienced something that Danny and I have not.

If there is an afterlife, perhaps we will speak of it some time in the future.

The Music of Christmas

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It is early on Christmas morning.

My bedroom window faces west so I won't be able to see when the sun starts to peek out over the eastern horizon, but that hasn't begun yet. It is still dark in Dallas, Texas, where I have spent so many Christmas mornings in my life.

And I am thinking about the music I associate with Christmas. It isn't always what you might think. Sure, there are the usual associations with seasonal songs and grade–school shows, but there are other, more personal memories of music and Christmas that are on my mind.

Sorting out those memories seems to be the order of business for me this morning. Perhaps it points the way to inner peace, which seems to be a worthy goal on Christmas.

I can get just as misty as the next person when I hear certain traditional songs that bring back memories of Christmases past and friends and relatives who have been gone for many years.

It always astonishes me how empty you can feel when you can't celebrate a holiday like Christmas the way you always did, how much you miss what was and will never be again — and how helpless, how powerless you feel when things change that you didn't want to change.

Change is inevitable, of course. And I guess I'm feeling particularly vulnerable to it this year. Seems like a lot of people who were important in my life have died this year, more than usual. Yes, I know that happens with more frequency as we get older, but it still leaves me with an empty feeling.

Change need not be a bad thing. I've been without a full–time job for more than two years now, and I guess I have been a little impatient waiting for the next chapter in my life to begin. As far as I'm concerned, that's one change that has been too long in coming.

Still, though, I can understand the resistance to change.

I grew up in Arkansas, but my grandparents and most of my parents' closest friends always lived right here in Dallas. My father was a college professor so he had time off at Christmas and we usually came to Dallas to spend the holidays.

I guess Christmas is always a magical time for children, but it was an especially magical time for me, and coming to my grandparents' home was always magical.

There were times when — for reasons I have forgotten or never knew — we didn't leave for Dallas until Christmas morning. In those days, we would have our family Christmas, then we would load up the car with our belongings and the gifts for the grandparents and friends and depart on the drive to Dallas, which usually took about seven hours in those pre–interstate days.

My memories of Christmas morning in those days are of waking up early and remaining in bed, impatiently waiting for the rest of the family to get up.

Like most children, I guess, I anticipated the presents that Christmas morning would bring, but I was excited, too, by the idea of simply being in Dallas later that day, in my grandparents' home. That was always an adventure for me, and there were always things to look forward to — the brownies in my grandmother's cookie jar, the softness of the beds in her home, trips to the park on pleasant days (and there were many of them in Dallas at Christmas when I was growing up), the familiar sights and sounds that I always associated with Dallas, whether it was Christmas or the Fourth of July.

When I think of music and Christmas morning, I can't help remembering a Christmas when I was still small. How small? I don't know. It's a vague memory, but I was young enough that I was still crawling into my parents' bed in the predawn hours and snuggling next to my mother. I guess I was 4 or 5.

On that particular Christmas Eve, my father set the alarm clock so we would all get up early enough to pack the car and get on the road, but he set it on radio and not alarm so, when the appointed time arrived, we were awakened to the sound of Christmas music playing on the radio.

The three of us lay there in the dark for several minutes, listening to the music before we got out of bed and began getting ready for the trip. I can't recall the tunes that were played — I think "Oh, Tannenbaum" was one of them, but that may be the intrusion of another memory because that was one of Mom's favorites.

Most of the time when I was growing up, we were in Dallas several days before Christmas.

But I still found myself waking before sunrise and waiting for the others to get up.

I remember a Christmas one year in the 1970s. I had gotten a portable radio for my birthday the month before, and I lay in bed listening to that radio via the earphone that came with it.

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It was very dark in the bedroom, the way it is now, not even the faintest traces of dawn's earliest light could be seen peeking through the curtains, and I remember hearing, for the very first time, the song "Black Water" by the Doobie Brothers. I think it had been released maybe a month before, but I hadn't heard it.

If I had heard it, I'm sure I would have remembered it. I was a Doobie Brothers fan in those days, and the song, with its bluegrass and Cajun influences, was so different from anything they had recorded before.

And yet I found it oddly familiar — and appealing.

Its message had little, if anything, to do with Christmas, but it had special relevance for me. After Christmas, my family planned to drive to New Orleans for a few days. We would be in the heart of Cajun country, where we probably would hear music that was similar to that — and, in fact, we did.

I remember humming that song all that Christmas morning while we did our family Christmas thing, then when we bundled up and drove to the retirement home where my father's mother was living. I didn't hum "Black Water" as we walked through the rather bland, antiseptic halls to my grandmother's room, but the song was playing on an endless loop in my head.

Not exactly "White Christmas," but, even today, when I hear "Black Water," I remember that Christmas morning.

Christmas always reminds me, too, of my mother, as I have written here before. It has never come close to being the same for me since she died.

I've been thinking of one Christmas in particular. I couldn't say what year it was, but it was when I was still living in Little Rock and vinyl LPs were still being sold so it must have been in the 1980s.

One of my closest friends was working as a clerk in a record store, and I told him I was looking for a record to give Mom for Christmas.

Mom was always very musical, and she was fond of performers like Simon and Garfunkel, Don McLean, John Denver, but I wanted to get her something I didn't think she had heard.

My friend suggested a collection of winter–oriented instrumental classical music from Windham Hill that featured a variety of artists like George Winston. I went by the store one night when he was there, and he played some of the album for me. I was impressed and bought it on the spot.

On Christmas morning, I remember sitting on the floor next to Mom when she opened my gift. She wanted to hear it right away, and it provided the perfect backdrop for a family Christmas. For the rest of her life, Mom frequently played that album on Christmas.

Christmas truly was Mom's time of year, just as it was for an old friend of mine, Phyllis, who died earlier this year. I don't think Phyllis and I ever spent a Christmas together, but we did see each other during the holidays.

And I always knew, even if I didn't see first hand, how much Christmas meant to her.

So this year especially, my thoughts are of Phyllis. And, indirectly, that, too, reminds me of some music that makes me think of Christmas.

Phyllis, as I have mentioned before, was a dedicated Christian. She changed Protestant denominations during her life, but, as far as I know, she always believed in God and Jesus.

She was also a talented musician. She loved all kinds of music. Well, I don't know how she felt about rap, but I think she liked just about every other kind of music.

About a year or two before we met, a rock opera called "Jesus Christ Superstar" was doing something that organized religion was failing to do — bring young people into the flock.

Phyllis and I never discussed "Jesus Christ Superstar." But I think she approved of any music that inspired people to seek God.

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Anyway, I remember one Christmas when my parents gave me a small package, small enough to fit in my hand. When I opened it, it turned out to be a homemade cassette recording of "Jesus Christ Superstar."

My father was a religion professor at a small liberal arts college in my hometown. As I recall, there was one copy of "Jesus Christ Superstar," a two–record set packaged in a special box (rare for that time) with a libretto, in the library at the college where he taught — or perhaps it was at the church where we were members.

Whichever it was, my father arranged to borrow it and recorded it when the technology for doing so was primitive, to say the least. The record he used as his source was scratchy, and it yielded a copy that was far from perfect. But I treasured that tape and listened to it endlessly until it finally gave out.

And even today, when I hear a song from that original recording, I remember that Christmas morning, whenever it was, and I listened for the first time to that tape my father made for me.

OK, my musical Christmas memories aren't exactly "White Christmas" or "Jingle Bells."

But they're mine, and I treasure them.

If you have a few minutes to spare on this Christmas Day, I'd like to hear about your Christmas memories — musical or not.

God Only Knows

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Today would have been my friend Phyllis' birthday.

Regular readers of this blog might remember when Phyllis died back in August, and I sought to use my blog as a way of coming to terms with the sense of loss I was feeling.

Well, actually, I used all three of my blogs that way. In addition to this blog, I write a blog about movies and music and books, and I write another blog about sports. My memories of Phyllis transcend topics so, at one time or another after she died, I felt compelled to mention her in each of my blogs — more extensively in some than others.

How am I doing? Well, I'm OK, I guess. I'm still having my random thoughts, my doubts about the afterlife and all that. But, while this could be said to be part of my grieving and healing process, I want to focus today on some random memories of Phyllis.

Because, no matter how I'm feeling or how I'm coping (or trying to cope) with my loss, October 16 is and always will be Phyllis' day in my mind.

• Phyllis and I met in sixth grade. In my then–small hometown, children went to one of three elementary schools, depending upon where their homes were located. Phyllis and I went to different elementary schools through the fifth grade, then the students from all three elementary schools were mixed together in the middle school melting pot, and (assuming their families remained in town) they stayed together through the end of high school.
  
  Consequently, when you advanced to middle school and started sixth grade, there were the familiar faces of people you had known since first grade and a whole bunch of unfamiliar faces, people you needed to get to know because they were likely to play important roles in your life for the next seven years.
  
  Middle school was a real change. In the first three grades, as I recall, students had the same teacher all day. In fourth and fifth grades, we had different teachers for different subjects, but we moved from one teacher to the next as a group throughout the day. The only face that differed from one class period to the next was the teacher's.
  
  In middle school, the structure was pretty much what it was for the rest of my public school life. There were hour–long class periods, and one's teachers and classmates changed from one hour to the next.
  
  I might start the day in math class, for example, but then, when first period was over, I would go to my next class, which might be history or English or science or whatever. There might be some students in that class who were with me in first period but not always — and rarely very many.
  
  I remember quite well the sea of faces that greeted me on that first day of middle school. I couldn't tell you who most of them were, but I do remember Phyllis.
  
  Now, as I wrote in August, I always think of music when I think of Phyllis and, for some reason, I think of "My Sweet Lord" when I try to remember the first time we met. Since I wrote that, though, I have been less and less certain that the song actually was playing nearby, on the radio or a stereo, when we met.
  
  I speculated a couple of months ago that that song may have been a hit on the radio when Phyllis and I started sixth grade. Maybe it was. Or maybe my mind is linking a popular song from that period to Phyllis because of her flair for music — or because of her faith in God.
  
  In short, there may be no event from my childhood that is buried in my subconscious mind that should make me think of "My Sweet Lord" — but I think of Phyllis when I hear it, anyway.
  
  God only knows why.
  
  I guess the earliest memory I have of Phyllis that is based on an actual event is from those early days of middle school, when everything was new.
  
  Our teacher — a middle–aged black woman (the first black teacher I ever had, by the way) — was going through the class roll and trying, without much success, to pronounce some of the most difficult surnames in our class. (Years later, many of those names would cause similar pronunciation problems for the folks who had to call out our names as we walked across the stage to receive our diplomas the night of our high school graduation.)
  
  Phyllis' last name was Yarbrough so, alphabetically, hers was always the last — or nearly the last — name to be called. By the time our sixth–grade teacher got to her name, she seemed to be on the verge of just giving up and looked out at the young faces in the room, seemingly searching for help, and she just said, "Phyllis ..." and sort of trailed off.
  
  Phyllis had been through that before, and, without batting an eye, she told the teacher that other teachers had had trouble pronouncing it, too. One teacher, she said, called her Phyllis Yarber. Then she told the teacher how to pronounce her name.
  
  But if the teacher got it wrong, Phyllis said, she shouldn't worry about it.
  
  "I'll answer to just about anything!" she assured the teacher, and the rest of the class laughed.
  
  As nearly as I can tell, that was the first time we met. I knew, right then and there, that I liked her. And I think the rest of the class felt the same way.
  
  I even mentioned that memory to Phyllis during one of our Facebook "chats" in the last year of her life. She didn't exactly recall the incident, which was understandable, I guess. How could one remember a single incident from one's childhood?
  
  But that memory has remained with me, and I hope it always does because — to me — it says so much about who Phyllis was.


• She was born just about six weeks before I was. One day shy of six weeks, as a matter of fact. Exactly 41 days.
  
  So, on Sept. 15, I quietly noted the fact that I had lived as long as Phyllis did. A month has now passed since that day.
  
  Even if I die in the next few minutes, I still will have lived longer than my friend. But I doubt that I have acquired as much wisdom as she did.
  
  And I really don't think my death, whenever it comes, will be as significant to as many people as hers.
  
  That isn't really a regret, just a statement of a fact, recognition of how much she meant to so many people.
  
  You know how, when you toss a pebble into a pond, it creates rings that start out small but keep expanding until they reach the shoreline — or whatever physical barrier they may encounter? That was what Phyllis' influence on people always seemed like to me. It started small, with the initial contact, and then got greater and greater.
  
  I guess most people have a similar ripple effect — for good or evil — on all the lives they touch. It is more pronounced, I suppose, with those who are at the extremes.
  
  A serial killer, for example, may leave in his wake the parents, siblings, lovers, children, friends, classmates, co–workers of his victims, and, if he is given the death sentence, few, if any, of those people will mourn his passing when it is carried out.
  
  But there are those at the other end of the spectrum, like Phyllis, who encourage the people in their lives, who lift them up and help them find their way.
  
  And, as the angel Clarence told George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life," they leave a huge hole when they aren't around.
  
  Phyllis left a considerable hole in a great many lives.
  
  There was a time, back in January, when I was pursuing what appeared, at the time, to be a promising writing opportunity. Part of my "audition" — for lack of a better term — required me to submit ideas for a potential TV show that would be aimed at children in the 8–12 age range.
  
  I have never married and I have no children of my own, so I didn't have much experience upon which to draw, but, in the last couple of years, I have reconnected (through Facebook and other sources) with many old friends who have been married and who have raised children. And I sought input from many of them.
  
  To be totally honest, I was really amazed at the response I got. I didn't ask for Phyllis' input because, although she had two stepsons, she didn't raise them, but I told her about the assignment and I listened, as always, to anything that she had to say.
  
  Anyway, I remember talking to her about the response I had received from maybe two dozen of the women with whom Phyllis and I went to school. I never thought of myself as particularly popular when I was growing up, and many of the women who responded to my inquiry were the sort who struck me, when I was a teenager, as being among the elite.
  
  They were, in my eyes, the beautiful people, and, when I was a teenager, I didn't think they would want to have much to do with the likes of me.
  
  But maybe I was wrong. Or maybe (probably) attitudes changed over the years. Anyway, I was telling Phyllis about the response to my inquiries. I guess, in spite of my best efforts, some of that inner 14–year–old boy came to the surface, and she could tell how astonished I was.
  
  "Sounds like a lot of people love you," she said.
  
  That was such a typically Phyllis thing for her to say yet, in a way, it took me by surprise. If we had been sitting in the same room and we'd been having that conversation, I probably could have said it with her, word for word — and we might have laughed, the way that only people who have known each other for a long time can.
  
  That's one of the things I will always remember about Phyllis. The laughter. She was always laughing. And she never laughed at you. She laughed with you.
  
  If she ever laughed at anyone, it was herself.
  
  Anyway, I might well have anticipated — in a Radar O'Reilly kind of way — what she was going to say.
  
  But it surprised me, too, because it contradicted what I have always thought about myself and my relationships with many of the people I knew growing up.
  
  Maybe it's true that most people simply cannot see themselves as others see them.
  
  God only knows.
  
  But if anyone I ever knew was truly loved by many, it was Phyllis. I don't know if she ever knew that. I hope she did.


• For whatever reason, I've been remembering, this morning, a truly meaningless incident from our high school days. Phyllis and I were in some sort of civics class together, and one night we were attending a city council meeting for that class — perhaps as an assignment, perhaps for extra credit. We were keeping notes that we were to turn in to our teacher.
  
  Anyway, something came up during the meeting, and Phyllis and I got kind of sidetracked by it. One of us started writing a note to the other, then handed the notebook to that person, who read it and wrote a response in his/her notebook and handed it to the other one.
  
  This process was repeated over and over and over for the rest of the meeting, creating a running dialogue that balanced precariously between the two notebooks. I recall neither of us mentioning any of the agenda items that were discussed after we veered off on our tangent.
  
  I also recall that we started giggling a few times, which drew disdainful looks from some of the council members so we tried to stifle our laughs. After all, we wanted to remain in the council room.
  
  Somehow, we avoided being ejected. But the episode wasn't over.
  
  Now, for the fallout ...
  
  Our teacher, who retired several years ago and may or may not still be living, was apparently stressed to the max by trying to grade our notes/papers.
  
  I don't remember the grades (or extra credit) we received, but I do remember that she wrote identical paragraphs at the end of our notes, complaining about having to juggle our papers to keep track of the conversation!
  
  And she half–threatened to give us only half credit for attending the meeting. But Phyllis and I didn't take that seriously. We were her two best students. She wouldn't lower our grades for being silly!
  
  Looking back on it now, it wasn't a great moment in education or community government, but it was a good example of the playful nature of our friendship.
  
  As I say, totally meaningless and probably a waste of a minute or two of your time, but a memory that brings a smile to my face. It is a real pleasure, on this day, to remember that evening all those years ago.


• Even now, nearly three months since her death, Phyllis is teaching me things about life. Like how completely honest old friends can be with each other.
  
  In life and on Facebook, Phyllis rarely threw anything away. Facebook will post even the most innocuous of your activities, and Phyllis was a devotee of Facebook games like FarmVille and the like. On Facebook, you can delete anything on your "wall," but, if you visit Phyllis' page, you can find announcements about her achievements in FarmVille and other activities from a year ago — or longer.
  
  Anyway, not long ago, I was looking back at the things people wrote on her "wall" on this day last year. It was sort of like a time capsule.
  
  There were many messages that wished her a happy birthday or advised her to do something special. I'm sure you can fill in the blanks yourself.
  
  Then there was a post from Phyllis, and the birthday girl thanked her friends for their birthday wishes — and for not mentioning her age.
  
  Then there was a post from a mutual friend of ours from our high school days. "Gee, you're old," he wrote.
  
  That's the kind of thing that only an old friend can say.
  
  And it makes me regret all the more that I won't be able to enjoy the pleasure of Phyllis' company as I get older.


• Not long after Phyllis died, I pointed out that she died on the anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death.
  
  I guess that is appropriate. Phyllis, as I have said before, was a fan of old movies — and old movie stars. Her favorite was Clark Gable, who died when she was a toddler.
  
  I suppose, if Phyllis had been given a choice, she might have chosen a different star with whom to share her date of death. If she had lived another three months, she could have died on the anniversary of Gable's death.
  
  (Well, maybe August 5 was the next best thing. After all, Marilyn and Gable co–starred in what turned out to be the final movie for both.)
  
  But I only recently learned something about the day Phyllis was born. On that very day, George C. Marshall died at the age of 78.
  
  It seems fitting to me. Marshall was an accomplished man in many endeavors — a skilled military leader who helped prepare the Allied forces for the D–Day invasion (and who might have been president if he had been chosen — as was widely presumed at the time — to lead the invasion instead of Dwight Eisenhower), a humanitarian who, as secretary of state, oversaw the implementation of his Marshall Plan that played a crucial role in Europe's postwar recovery — and was rewarded with a Nobel Prize.
  
  Marshall was admired by many for his accomplishments on a worldwide stage. Phyllis' stage was considerably smaller, but her influence was no less to those whose lives she touched. She left behind many friends and admirers who will long remember her achievements.
  
  Well, Phyllis was one of those people who is hard to forget.

Most of the time these days, the memories of her life's achievements make me smile.

Those memories are made bittersweet, of course, by the knowledge that I can't share them with her. Ever again.

And there are still times when those memories bring tears to my eyes.

So, I guess, even on this day — Phyllis' day — when I want to think only of the happy times I shared with my friend, I can't entirely avoid my own conflicts.

I want to be happy for her, to be glad that the pain she experienced is over. I want to believe she is in a better place — but, while I do find personal inspiration, as I did when I was growing up, in the stories of Jesus' teachings, I can feel my faith waver on the subject of the afterlife.

And the questions have been more persistent since Phyllis died.

As I say, I'd like to believe she is in a better place. But, if I am honest with myself, I am not sure about it. I can only hope — perhaps mostly for selfish reasons — that there is an afterlife.

Because, if there is an afterlife, I can hope to someday see Phyllis again — as well as my mother and my grandparents and many other friends who are missed.

But, if there is not an afterlife, then this is all there is. Death will mean returning to the void from which I came.

I guess that wouldn't be so bad — except that it would make what happens here kind of pointless.

Well, I guess that depends on your point of view.

Phyllis was one of those people who believed that contributing in some way to an improved quality of life for those who follow is what matters, whether there is a God or not. She happened to believe that there is a God, and she felt called upon by God to do whatever she could to make things better for future generations — but, even if you could have proven to her, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that God does not exist, she still would have felt that improving the quality of life for those who follow is what is important.

That's just the way she was.

That brings to mind an exchange we had in one of our Facebook chats in the last year of her life. We were talking about the 2008 election. Phyllis, as I wrote at the time of her death, was raised a Democrat, but she became a Republican when Ronald Reagan was elected president.

Anyway, in 2008, she voted for John McCain, but she spoke in our chat of how happy she had been for her black countrymen, most of whom supported Barack Obama, on Election Night. "I was glad that it was so empowering for them," she told me.

Seldom, if ever, in my life have I heard a member of one political party speak so generously of the supporters of a victorious candidate from the other political party.

But that was Phyllis. She never mentioned whether she was particularly moved by the experience of voting for a presidential ticket that included a woman (I presume it was her first time to do that. I mean, she could have voted for the Mondale–Ferraro ticket against Reagan, but I don't think she did). She only spoke of the boost Obama's victory gave to black Americans.

Sometimes, I visit Phyllis' page on Facebook. I'm not sure why. But it seems that others do, too.

Phyllis was cremated and her ashes were scattered in a meaningful place, which is not a bad thing, but the problem is that there is no grave to visit, no place to pay one's respects.

No place to seek a semblance of closure. And I'm sure that may seem, to my longtime readers, like a strange statement to come from me. They know I'm skeptical about the concept of closure. But the crazy part is that I do feel a kind of closure when I visit that page.

Well, perhaps closure is the wrong word. I'm just not sure what the right word would be. Peace, maybe? Or calm?

I think, this must be how people who have lost loved ones at sea — or, perhaps, how the friends and relatives of many of the September 11 victims, the ones of whom no trace was found — must feel. Maybe that is why I come to Phyllis' Facebook page. It may be why others do, too.

Most may be like me — periodic visitors who just drop by to look and think, to meditate, as if one were sitting next to a babbling brook or beneath a shady tree. But a few leave messages, even though they know Phyllis can't read them.

It is sort of like lighting a candle or leaving a bouquet of flowers. Therapeutic, I suppose.

It's kind of like an emotional/psychological yardstick. Do you remember how your parents would use a yardstick to periodically measure you to see how tall you were? I kind of feel those messages for Phyllis are like that. If you're missing her more than usual, you can leave a message on her wall and come back months later and compare how you are feeling to how you had been feeling then — and measure your emotional growth.

"Missing you," wrote one.

I know that feeling. There are often times when a simple thought crosses my mind — "I miss you, Phyllis." I don't know where that thought comes from or what prompts it. Just an honest statement. It seldom comes with a context — even one as simple as "Gee, I wish you were here."

Actually, I guess, I kind of prefer the times when there is a logical context for that feeling. I just started teaching again (on an adjunct basis) after several years away from it. Phyllis was once a teacher, and there are times when I really miss the insights she could have provided — and that I expected to receive until about two weeks before the semester began.

But often — inexplicably — just that simple thought — "I miss you, Phyllis" — is what crosses my mind. Nothing else.

This isn't really new for me. I have been having that same experience since my mother died 15 years ago. There has seldom been a day in all those years when I haven't thought, at least once, of how much I miss her.

Sometimes my thought is not addressed to either Mom or Phyllis in particular but with both in mind — as if their spirits were sitting in the room, nodding knowingly and silently, barred from communicating with me directly because of some heavenly dictum.

I know all too well what it is like to miss someone who is never coming back.

Another wrote that she was "happy that you are out of pain ... sad for the rest of us who don't get to joke around with you anymore."

And I agree with that. Phyllis was in a lot of pain in the last years of her life, and I'm glad that is over for her. But still I miss her. I can't help it.

I swear, I really didn't want to write about how I'm coping. Today is supposed to be Phyllis' day.

When will I stop missing you, Phyllis? Will I ever stop missing you?

God only knows.

Phyllis' Opus

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This morning, in my hometown of Conway, Ark., people are gathering to honor my friend Phyllis, of whom I have written much — and thought even more — in the last 10 days.

I have no doubt that there have been many private conversations about Phyllis and the influence she had on everyone she knew.

But this morning the first public notes of Phyllis' opus will be played for the world, almost certainly through some tears because this is a loss for all who knew her, but it will become increasingly joyful, as befits Phyllis herself.

All the things I have written here and elsewhere, all the e–mail exchanges and telephone conversations I have had with friends, all the unexpressed thoughts and memories I have had in these last 10 days will remain with me the rest of my life.

There really is no doubt about it, as far as I am concerned. When I think of Phyllis in the days, weeks, months, even years ahead (if what is left of my life can be measured in years), I will frequently remember many things that occurred after her death. Things of which she never knew — at least in her earthly existence (but that takes us into a discussion of faith and belief, or lack thereof, in an afterlife, and, although Phyllis devoutly believed in God, I don't really want to go there today).

It was that way for me when my mother died. The circumstances were different, but I still find myself thinking as much of the time right after her death as I do of the many wonderful memories I have of her when she was alive.

It wasn't that way for me with my grandmother, though. She had dementia — Mom called it "hardening of the arteries," which I have come to believe was a polite way of saying Alzheimer's disease in those days — and she was never really the grandmother I had known in the last eight or nine years of her life. When she died, I remember wondering if I would ever be able to think of her without picturing her the way she was at the end.

As it turned out, I worried needlessly about that. It wasn't long after her funeral that I realized that my memories of her when she was sick were rapidly receding. Today, I really have to concentrate to remember her in the grip of Alzheimer's. It is virtually effortless, though, for me to remember her when I was a child or — shudder — in my somewhat rebellious teenage years.

Circumstances may have a lot to do with that. I watched my grandmother decline for years. My mother and Phyllis, on the other hand, seemed to be snatched away without warning.

Long before this time of mourning and reflection, I associated Phyllis with music. She was always musical. We didn't know each other for the first 11 or 12 years of our lives, but I'd be willing to bet she was always musical as a child. It really wouldn't surprise me if she was born with a song on her lips.

Well, we knew each other from sixth grade on, and, while I couldn't tell you how or where we met, I'm sure music was there, not far away, in one form or another. Maybe a radio was on. Maybe one of those newfangled 8–track or cassette tapes was playing.

Maybe we were in the generic music appreciation class that we all had to take when we were in middle school in those days.

For some reason, my mind associates my first meeting with Phyllis with "My Sweet Lord." Perhaps that was the big hit at the time?

Anyway, as I have written here before, she had many interests, many talents. I will think of those gifts often in the time that is left to me. But the gift that will always stand out in my memory is her gift for music and her eagerness to share it with others.

Fifteen years ago, when the film "Mr. Holland's Opus" came out, I thought about Phyllis when I saw it. It seemed natural to do so. It was so familiar — the marching band, the joy of making music, the public school setting.

Besides, even when I was an adolescent, I pictured Phyllis teaching music — and, although she did other things in her life, she actually did teach music for several years. I didn't know that when the movie came out, though, but it didn't require much of a mental leap for me to see Phyllis in Mr. Holland.

I'm sure she dabbled in composition, too, even if it was mostly part of her music studies. I don't know what she was doing when the movie came out. But I found myself wondering, as I watched the final scene (which you can see in the attached clip), if Phyllis, like Mr. Holland, had ever felt that her life had been "misspent."

Perhaps, as was said of Mr. Holland, Phyllis worked secretly on a composition that could have made her rich and famous. But Phyllis, like Mr. Holland, was not wealthy (by traditional standards), and she wasn't famous outside our town (which was small when we were growing up but has mushroomed in recent years) or our county.

So she may not have been working on that symphonic composition that could have brought her fame, but she was rich, though. Not in a monetary sense, but in all the lives she touched, and those lives will always be different because of her. Whatever is accomplished here on earth by those she left behind can truly be said to have been the result, at least in part, of her influence.

In the days since her death, I have seen entries in an online guestbook at the funeral home and on her Facebook page in which Phyllis has been described as bubbly, optimistic, always smiling. And that is true. In my mind, Phyllis will always be the same friend I remember from my teenage years, a force of nature, always positive, always insisting on the best from those around her because she always demanded the best from herself.

Did she ever consider herself a failure, as Mr. Holland's former student said of him? I don't know. Perhaps she did. Perhaps she felt like a failure if she allowed herself to think of how things may not have turned out as she had hoped.

I don't know how many conscious hours she spent in the hospital in her final weeks. And if I did know how many conscious hours she had, it still probably wouldn't be possible to know how many she passed believing she would recover — or if there was a point when she realized that she would not.

If she did realize, at some point, that she was not going to live much longer, she may have reflected on the things she would not have, like the opportunity to grow old (and to do so with her husband, whom she did not marry until a decade before her death), or the path she did not take.

That seems unlikely to me. Phyllis never was the sort who would dwell on what might have been. But who can say what goes through the mind of a dying person who may have already experienced the other four stages of death (anger, denial, bargaining and depression) and is left with only the final stage — to accept the inevitable?

The only thing I can conclude is, if she ever did think of herself as a failure, she was wrong, as Mr. Holland would have been.

Today, I suspect that the church where her memorial service is being held will resemble the auditorium in the final scene from "Mr. Holland's Opus." It may not be as large, and it won't be anywhere near as joyous — and that really is too bad because Phyllis deserved that kind of recognition, from a huge auditorium filled with cheering admirers, during her lifetime — but, like that auditorium, the church will be filled with some — but far from all — of the lives that were graced by Phyllis' touch.

Those lives in the church today will be merely part of Phyllis' opus, the music of her life, and through those lives and many more her spirit will live on. They will play a music that others may not hear but which was inspired by Phyllis. And for years to come, the world will continue to be touched by her, in ways that are seen and unseen, heard and unheard.

Thank God for that.

OK, I know I said earlier that I didn't want to talk about faith — and I still don't — but Phyllis always believed in God. Regardless of whatever doubts I may have, it still seems appropriate on this day to be thankful that Phyllis' spirit will live on in this world, that she won't soon be forgotten.

And if that is God's doing, then I say a heart felt "Thank you."

At the same time, I suppose, there is an equal and opposite reaction, personified in a small voice that protests that we should have had more time with Phyllis, a sense that what we should have had and what we got were two different things.

I confess, I do feel that way at times. It's the same feeling I had when my mother died.

But that's me, wrestling with my sense of loss. And I want to get past that because, as I said, Phyllis wouldn't have dwelled on what might have been.

In the future, I want to remember Phyllis with gratitude for all the things we shared.

I guess there really isn't much left to say now — except for this.

I remember once, when I was a child, I was with my mother in a store in New York City, where we were spending the summer. And I saw a sign promoting a certain brand of beer that proclaimed, in its commercials of that day, that it had "gusto."

I was only about 7 or 8 at the time, I guess, and I asked my mother if we could get some. I didn't know what beer was. I guess I thought it was some special kind of root beer (I liked root beer when I was a child, and I still associate its flavor with pleasant memories of childhood) — and I must have figured that gusto was some kind of special ingredient, like the barley and hops I had heard mentioned in other beer commercials.

Mom was a non–drinker in those days — later in her life, she did enjoy an occasional glass of wine with dinner, but, as I say, that was later in her life — and she must have been appalled when she heard her child asking her if we could buy a six–pack.

It was an honest mistake, though. I didn't know what beer was — and I sure didn't know what gusto was.

But I do now — because of Phyllis. You could see it in the way she approached everything — her music, her studies, her relationships. She truly had a gusto for life that she passed on — or tried to pass on — to all those around her, strangers as well as friends and family, although she seemed to be particularly intent upon sharing it with those who were closest to her.

And I will try to live the rest of my life in a way that would make her proud.

You know, it can seem terribly daunting to try to go forward after someone significant in your life has died. But we must carry on the best we can. Is there any other option?

Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Lemon may have said it best. He endured what may be the greatest loss a person can endure — the loss of his son.

"I've never looked back and regretted anything," he said. "I've had everything in baseball a man could ask for. I've been so fortunate. Outside of my boy getting killed. That really puts it in perspective. So you don't win the pennant. You don't win the World Series. Who gives a damn? Twenty years from now, who'll give a damn?

"You do the best you can. That's it."

And that is what I will do. My best. It is all I can do.

A Few Random Thoughts

This is the third straight day I have felt compelled to write about the death of my good friend, Phyllis.

Maybe I am obsessing. But I can't really help it. I keep remembering things that I had long forgotten. And maybe, somewhere in the back of my mind, there is the belief that if I keep writing about her, I can somehow put off the finality of it all.

That's ridiculous, of course. Phyllis is gone. I've confirmed it in numerous ways — through friends, the online obituary at the funeral home, just about every way I can except for an obituary in our hometown newspaper (Phyllis died on Thursday, but there is still no report of it in the local paper — I don't know why).

I guess it's my training as a journalist at work. I have to confirm things through multiple sources before I can believe they are true.

And the thoughts I've had probably fall more in the category of "things I'm having trouble understanding" rather than "things I remember with fondness."

There are many things about Phyllis that I do — and, most likely, will — remember with much fondness, even though they bring tears to my eyes now. Some of those things I prefer to keep private, though. They're just memories I have of moments and things we shared. There is nothing particularly poignant about them, other than the knowledge I now have of how everything ended for her.

For example, Phyllis' last name — at least when we were in school together — was Yarbrough. I shortened that to "PY," which is what I called her in high school and continued to call her after we graduated. As the years went by, other people called her "PY," too. Some may have been inspired to do so by my example. Others may have done it on their own. Whatever the reason, it is a nickname many used for her until her dying day.

Well, I guess it wasn't used so much after she married. Based on some notes she wrote about herself on Facebook just about a year ago, one of her nicknames was "PC" — a moniker that, apparently, she acquired after her surname became Coleman. (I guess it was sort of a double entendre, considering how "PC" is often used as the abbreviation for "personal computer" or "political correctness.")

I will always remember one evening when we were finishing up a "chat" on Facebook, and I said something like, "Good night, PY." There was a pause, then came her reply: "No one has called me that in years! It feels good."

Then she called me "DG" — my initials. It's also the nickname she used for me in high school. Nobody had called me that in years, either. And it felt good.

Now, I wonder if anyone will ever call me "DG" again. I feel torn on that one right now.

I feel that way about other things.

Even though I know she's dead — and it had been awhile since we "chatted" on Facebook — I can't help thinking, whenever I sit down in front of my computer, that I need to send a message to Phyllis asking her when she will be free to chat. And I have to remind myself that we won't be chatting anymore. I wonder when I'll stop doing that.

I'm really going to miss our chats. I miss them already.

I remember last year when I had submitted an application for a writing job online, and the application asked me a question that I had never been asked before. I wanted to talk to Phyllis about it.

The application asked, "What is your favorite word and why?" Phyllis asked me what my answer had been. I told her, "Redemption — because it suggests that no mistake is permanent, that we can all learn from our errors."

My answer must not have impressed the potential employers, but it impressed Phyllis. "It shows you're smarter than the average bear," she said, alluding to a line from the Yogi Bear cartoons of our childhoods.

And I think about when we were in school together, and we went to her house after school sometimes. It was there that she introduced me to some of the music that was special to her — jazz musician Maynard Ferguson and country singer Kenny Rogers stand out in my memory.

I've tried to listen to some of the music we listened to when we were teenagers. I can't do it. Not yet. My wound is too fresh.

It reminds me of how I felt when I lost my mother. It has been the same out–of–the–blue, punched–in–the–gut experience for me.

There are other things about Phyllis — or, more accurately, the subject of death — that I still feel a need to write about. I don't expect an answer — although, if anybody has one, I certainly would love to hear it.

• On Friday, when I first wrote here about Phyllis, I mentioned the "McGovern Club" that Phyllis, Doug and I formed back when we were in sixth or seventh grade in Arkansas.
  
  I e–mailed Doug with the news Friday afternoon. In his response, he spoke of the "McGovern Club" and said that "I'm sure Phyllis would want us to carry on."
  
  I know Doug meant well by that, and he may be right. If you could ask her, I am confident that Phyllis really would want all those she left behind to "carry on."
  
  She would have felt bad if she had thought that, when she left this life, no one would mourn her passing (I would say there were/are two chances of that happening — slim and none).
  
  But I think she would have felt worse if she thought that anyone was so overwhelmed or paralyzed by their grief that they couldn't function.
  
  Nevertheless, I have never really understood why anyone would assume they know what a deceased person would think or say or feel. I guess, if you were close to a person who died — a spouse or a sibling or a longtime friend — you might have a pretty good idea. But you can't know something like that for sure. Can you?


• Similarly, I guess, I'm not really sure what I think when I hear people talk about how someone who died is "looking down and smiling." As George Carlin said, you never hear people say that someone is looking up at us and screaming from the fires of hell — even if the person in question really lived a despicable life.
  
  It comes back to that afterlife question, I suppose, and whatever one imagines it to be like. And part of it, I guess, is a reluctance on the part of those who are still living to suggest (even if they believe it) that someone they knew is now suffering eternal damnation.
  
  It also makes me think of something else. Using words like "up" and "down" suggests a spatial element to the spiritual world when space, it seems to me, is really more of a characteristic of the physical world.
  
  It's sort of like the concept of space in the digital age. These things I write and the images I post with them all take up a certain amount of space in the non–physical internet world. I have "folders" on my computer that are filled with things I have written, photos I have scanned and things like that. But they do not take on a physical quality unless I print them out.
  
  I think it is the fact that we mortals know so little about what is next — if anything is — that prompts us to give the afterlife characteristics that are familiar to us from our physical existences.
  
  Phyllis, for example, was an accomplished musician. I often hear talk of a heavenly chorus or a heavenly band, and, if such a thing really does exist, I'm sure Phyllis is a part of it.
  
  But it doesn't make sense to me that she would play instruments she played in the physical realm. What use would a spirit have for instruments that were created by humans from materials they had on earth?
  
  See, my understanding of the history of musical instruments is that they largely came into being because humans discovered that this or that could produce certain sounds — and, when certain sounds were made together, they produced music.
  
  But music has long been used to glorify one's faith in a God. The Bible, after all, mentions the sound of heavenly music from time to time, even to the ancients, whose only "instruments" may have been hollowed out logs or reeds or something like that.
  
  So, perhaps, we're kinda sorta on the right track. I mean, maybe there is that heavenly band, and, if there is, as I say, I'm sure Phyllis is part of it. But I don't think she's playing a flute or a piccolo. If heaven really is perfect, I am thinking, she must be playing instruments that are beyond our mortal comprehension.
  
  My grandfather enjoyed fishing in his later years. After he died, I heard people talk of how he was in his boat catching the big ones in heaven. Same thing. Why would a spirit need a boat? Boats were created by men to serve their specific purposes — to cross bodies of water or to pursue creatures, like fish, that lived in the water.
  
  But water is something that humans need, like air and food and sleep and clothing and shelter. Spirits don't.
  
  Likewise, spirits don't need boats or cars or any other conveyance to travel from one place to another. They aren't subject to physical laws. Are they? The Bible speaks of God sending messengers (i.e., heavenly spirits) to earth, but it doesn't say that they used airplanes or cars or boats to make their journey.
  
  But neither Phyllis nor anyone else has (to my knowledge) visited me — in either my dreams or my waking moments — to share with me any insights they may have. Angels or spirits or whatever they are, if they do exist, apparently haven't made my home one of their destinations on their visits here.

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  Maybe they only visit certain people, like Haley Joel Osment's character in "The Sixth Sense." If so, maybe I will need to find a real–life Haley Joel Osment one of these days, just to find out if Phyllis — or anyone else I knew — has anything to say to me.
  
  On the other hand ...
  
  I have a friend who insists that her mother, who passed away several years ago, has visited her — in the guise of her mother's favorite bird. That, apparently, is how my friend knows it was her mother. The bird sang, as birds do, and perched on my friend's windowsill for a couple of moments, then flew off.
  
  It imparted no special wisdom to her. As far as I know, it did nothing out of the ordinary to let my friend know its true identity. It just happened to show up at a moment when my friend was thinking about her mother — with whom, I guess it should be said, my friend often had a stormy relationship when they both occupied the same plane of existence.
  
  So, on the one hand, I guess I am skeptical of the existence of angels and spirits — and, if they do exist, of their ability to travel from wherever the afterlife may be to earth or anywhere else.
  
  And, yet, I wrote yesterday about an experience I had many years ago when I was traveling to Arkansas for the funeral of another friend. In nearly 20 years, I haven't been able to satisfactorily explain it.
  
  I guess there are a lot of things about the spiritual world that I don't understand.


• Something else I wonder about is the stuff I've heard since I was a little boy — like how your life flashes before your eyes when you're dying.
  
  I have to wonder if that's true. If it is, how do we know? I mean, if it is true, it's only happened to people who were just about to "cross over," as the saying goes.
  
  And I wonder if it happened with Phyllis. As the life was ebbing from her body, did her earthly experiences flash before her eyes? If they did, what did she see and whom did she see? Did she see herself at the various stages of her life? Did she see people who have made what is called a "transition?" Or did she see friends and relatives she was leaving behind?
  
  My logical mind wonders if the idea that dying people see their lives flash before their eyes arose from an attempt to understand incoherent ramblings. Perhaps some people had hallucinations on their deathbeds and called out to people who weren't there, who may have died years before.
  
  And perhaps that was misinterpreted by those who survived.

I guess there are a lot of things I will never understand — or, at least, won't understand until my time to die comes.

Until that day, I guess there will always be times when I will regret that I didn't have that last chance to tell Phyllis goodbye, to tell her I loved her and how much she had meant to me, how much she had influenced me, how her memory will always be with me — even her voice, which I haven't heard in years and will never hear again, will echo in my ears almost every day.

But Phyllis was very perceptive. And I'm sure she knew all those things, even without hearing (or reading) them from me.

It just would have been nice to tell her, anyway.