| Sunny Side Up Sept. 8, 2004 �2004, Kathleen Gibson Sunny side upside down Some summers the sun forgets it was created to shine. Some days I forget it's my job to look for it. Today, I played the organ at the funeral for a friend and neighbour. I remembered that night at his kitchen table when he told us how much he wanted to die at home. He couldn't. I'm sickened by my guilt that I never visited to brighten his days in the care home. I was going to, this week. Good-bye my friend, it's hard to die� Two days ago, in a recliner in Lethbridge, a gentle white-haired man gave two sighs and forever let go of family and friends and woodworking and worry. The Preacher and I prayed with his daughter and son-in-law. Mingled sorrow and peace tumbled across their faces like laundry in a dryer window. He'd been so ready, will be so missed. Good-bye to you, my trusted friend�. I met Lakshmi in India; interviewed her in the concrete 10 x 10 room she and her three children call home. She sold peanuts at the commuter station from morning to night, she told me. Just to live, just to keep rice in her family's stomachs. And so she could go on caring for the man dying of AIDS in the next concrete room. He'd been a terrible husband to her, but the disease changed things. A few weeks ago he called her name twice, said 'Jesus' and died, just like that�. Good-bye, my friend, it's hard to die� A few days ago I drove across the intersection of First Ave. and Broadway, where only hours before a young man was stabbed to death. My radio played, 'Good-bye my friend, it's hard to die�.. and I wondered if anyone had whispered his name in God's ear, ever. Good-by Papa, please pray for me� A neighbour died, far too fast, a few years ago now. I talked to her husband recently. He still can't find his way back up. "It's awful, Kathleen. You turn the radio on, but it's just noise. You wake up at five, but there's nothing to get up for; only empty walls." Good-bye my friend, it's hard to die�. "Maurice shot himself," my sister Beverly said of an old friend, last month. And I remembered the curly-haired, blue-eyed boy who desperately loved her once, long ago, and that day in the canoe at Bunsen Lake, when I squinted up at him in the sun and he teased me about my eyes. We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun� School bells summon the children in from the summer that never was; the tomatoes are dying green; my daughter moved closer but I miss my son in B.C.; and I don't know why all stories can't have happy endings. Or lives. Or even a day every now and then, for some people� But the wine and the song, like the seasons, have all gone. I think Jesus knows that song too. You can respond to this column at [email protected] |
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