Words Fly Up

Scout said, "Neighbors bring food with death, flowers with sickness, and little things in between." In the course of one day, I wrote a comforting note to a friend who has cancer, wrote another comforting note to a friend locked in an ugly custody battle, received notice of an upcoming funeral and sent a photo of a long-deceased friend to his widow. An incurable problem-solver, there are some problems that I cannot solve. All I can do is send my love and support. All I can do visualize healing, peace, resolution, and hope for the best.

It was the photo that sent my thoughts down this track today. I received a Facebook message from my old friend Sue (Facebook - it's a brave new world.) She lost all of her photo albums in a robbery and wrote to ask if I had any pictures of her deceased husband, my long-ago former partner, Toby. I didn't have any photos of Toby (he was notoriously camera shy) but, strangely enough, Sequoia did. Sequoia has been digitizing his father's collection of slides and found some photos of our wedding, including one with Toby in the background. He zoomed in and managed to capture a striking photo of Toby, the only remaining image of him left in this world.

Typical that this photo would surface exactly when needed. Toby had that effect.

Some day I'll write about Toby, but not yet. He's been dead now for, what, seven, eight years? I don't even know. I hadn't seen him in more than a decade when I heard the news. I always expected to run into him at some hippie gathering or Dead show. I was certain I'd turn a corner and there he'd be, waiting for me.

Maybe he's waiting for me "on the other side," but I don't really believe that. I'd pray for him and all the others if I could, but as Claudius said so well, "my words fly up, my thoughts remain below." It's difficult for an agnostic to pray with a straight face. Who do I think I'm fooling? I've long believed that, when the oil is spent, the light goes out. Prayer cannot reignite the flame.

I have no faith, but I still have hope. Maybe that's all prayer is: hope coupled with magical thinking.