Dear All, This week my best friend for more than ten years died in my arms. Tosca The Wonder Dog. I knew I would be unbearably sad when he died, and I was and still am. Tosca died the way I want to die, knowing that he was loved. It doesn’t help. Me, I mean. Being there. For him. I am reminded when one of my best friends died a week before my wedding eleven years ago. He was supposed to be an usher in my wedding. He was a Filipino psychiatrist in his sixties. At the time I was living in Philadelphia and he was in South Carolina. For some reason I never understood he loved my ass in such a sweeping loyal way it took my breath away. He was, as far as I knew, the personification of unconditional love. Every time I saw him, and he made it his business to visit me three or four times every year, no matter where I was or what I was doing. Whenever he came, he would bring me a brand new, expensive shirt, like the kind he would wear. They were too conservative for me, but I never told him and he always brought me a shirt. The week before the wedding I called to say hello. It was then that I learned the real power of words. His wife, who was also Filipino and also a psychiatrist, picked up the phone and said simply, “Matt, Al’s dead.” Why Al died doesn’t matter. For months after that I cried. Because my house in Narberth, PA, was pricey but didn’t have much closet space, I ceded the bedroom closet and all of the closets to my new wife and put my clothes in the basement, where I got dressed every morning. I would go downstairs, play John Hiatt’s song “My Old Friend,” and cry to beat the band. It was my own version of Eleanor Roosevelt turning on the water in the bathroom. Finally, one day my wife figured it out and came down the basement stairs to find me crying. I learned then that real pain is when someone you love dies and you can’t imagine a world without them in it. In a flash, there is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, and no one ever said life was fair. I felt that way again this week after Tosca died. I will not be over it in a week or a month or for that matter maybe for the rest of my life. I am too acquainted with death now, and not arrogant enough to think it is not preparation for my own death. I am not sure when or if I will re-emerge. I have taken down all of the photos of everything except myself and put up just photos of Tosca. Although he was a big dog, 150 lb., he always had those little “sales tag” ears,which I used to rub. Below is a poem I wrote after his death which I posted on Facebook, which I am going to resign from. If you really want to know how I feel, go to You Tube and listen to “How Could Anyone Ever Tell You” by Shaina Noll. Even before Tosca died it always made me cry. And with that I bid you all a fond farewell. Its been, as Bob Hope said, swell. My advice is to love “the ones you’re with. Now. God Bless Us One and All, James
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 00:32:09 +0000
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