Saturday, March 4

Well, I guess the time has arrived that I quit fooling around and start doing some real blogging - rather than just posting stories, poems, and the generally more anonymous writings I have been pasting up here. Actually I shouldn't have a problem with it, its just more letter-writing and I have had lots of practice doing that. But somehow this blogging affair is different. It feels foolish, like talking to myself aloud in an empty room, or giving the cat a rundown of my day - although I sometimes fear such things are beginning to feel a bit too normal. A couple times of late I even caught myself having conversations at the grocery store with canned goods, as if they were responsible for the increase in price - not loud or anything, but enough to draw a few startled looks from some of the passing younger cart pushers. The old ones never look my way. Either they can't hear me or else they don't see anything wierd at all about it.

This morning we attended the funeral of a dearly beloved friend of ours, a lady named Cherry Cook. We have known Cherry I am thinking for about 30 years. She was a very special lady to us and will be sorely missed even though, due to driving distance between our house and hers, we didn't get to visit with her as often as we would have liked. But just knowing she was there, and that we could see her every so often, we considered a great blessing.

Cherry was a comfortable, quiet person who lived an uncluttered life in a small town, a widow for about the last three years. I think what I loved most about this sweet lady was her total acceptance of people: her friends, family, and aquaintances. She took us at face value and loved us for ourselves, never speaking evil of a single soul so far as I know; and others have said the same thing about her. And her faith in her Lord was just as uncomplicated as she was. She simply knew that she could trust Him, and she was ready to go to be with Him.

For the remainder of the day, after leaving Cherry's home where friends and family had gathered after the graveside service, I kept feeling like this was the end of an era of some kind - though I couldn't quite figure out exactly what, since she is not the first elderly, longtime friend we have lost and surely not the last. Nevertheless the idea has persisted. I told my husband, as we pulled away from the curb, as the saying goes, "We may never pass this way again."