The Heap of Dead People they Called their Friends…
Death has come close rarely, but near quite often. As with most of you, I have lost foolish friends, either in high school or in college, or at various points along this way to where we find ourselves now. Certain among us have experienced close death, AND have a far greater understanding of it than I will have for quite some time. To those, I say, let me seek your help when my time comes. I know for certain it will be coming soon.
It was a given that this objective to tell 100 stories of 100 friends would have to, at one point, settle upon dead friends. For me, fortunately, beyond the likes of Michael and a few others whose distance in time, makes their faces familiar but their names forgotten… for me, of the 100, but a few are gone.
The big lovable deaf guy at Colorization who suddenly died of cancer… the pain in the ass faggot who died of aids. Chris, a beautiful childlike soul, who just up and died before illustrating the most wonderful of pieces of music in pencil crayon. Friends who almost died… Or old friends like Steve Banks, whose memorial I missed just a few weeks ago. Funny, I wonder if he considered me a friend as I did him.
I’ve suffered very little… But I have watched, and am starting to watch with greater frequency my folks watch their friends fall dead around them. Funny enough, I’ve on more than one occasion; felt the loss of a friend of my parents pretty close to their loss… So I might say [?]
Ken Bailey
I consider my father to be my best friend. That said, my father comes from a different time, where certainly sons would not be best friends, and the associations they made with other men would not be held in the same light us little boys of the next generation hold our friendships to now. My father has stories of the boys he palled around with as a little trouble maker. These stories focus on events, rather than the feelings they held for one another. Secretly, I know that when my dad and Lorne, and whoever else it was with them; found 6 sticks of dynamite, and proceeded to blow up half of Markham Ontario; I secretly know that these men… where friends!
As a boy looking up to his father, you tend to miss the fact that your father is just the man you will eventually be. Actually, my father was quite a bit younger than me the first time I had enough forethought to think of things like this. My father was hard working guy, raising a family long before the age I thought maybe doing some hard work and raising a family might be an interesting endeavor.
Sometimes, I have tried to consider my father, NOT my father, and NOT my friend, but as a regular dude, with his own friends… he just happened to have a family as, ALL of his friends did. His, friends… Jim Honey, Jim Craig, Ken Richards, Ken Bailey… and honestly hundreds… more faces, voices, stories passing so rapidly in and out of memories that it would be absolutely impossible to catch them here. When I was young, I saw my father a king amongst his friends, as I grew older, I saw my father as a wonderfully friendly man. I have always aspired to my father’s friendliness…
A mother’s friend is the other woman who you know will always take care of you when Mom’s not around. Becky Coe, Mavis Weaver, Doris Rolf, Mrs. Collar, Mona Richardson, Gloria Honey…
In the late 70’s they found an illegal toxic waste dump on a farm across the bay from the small town I grew up… I still have questions as to why Mavis, Mona and Gloria are not playing bridge with mom, rather than being the first and many of bridge partners she’s lost since her 40’s.
Ken Baily lost his wife, Beano, another friend of our family while she was in her 50’s. Ken, Beano, AND Mona and a host of others all sailed happily on the bay upon which they found the dump… THAT is not the issue here. I grew up with my friendly parents friends, most on boats, most just living, growing and raising their families along side my folks who where arising theirs.
The callous title of this quick little story was meant to be just as it is. One day I WILL toss my parents on the heap of dead people they called their friends. They were my friends as well. One helluva a great big wonderful people. One great big heap of extended family; I slept in their homes, ate the meals they cooked their kids… their kids who forced me; or were forced by me into heaps of trouble.
No, I am definitely NOT looking forward to that day, but… as I have to, I will toss my folks in with their friends one day…
