Blog Friend

 

 

Blog Friend

The nice thing about blogging is having friends that you never actually meet. 

The absolutely worst thing about blogging is losing friends you’ve never actually met.

Generally these friends you’ve never met just drop off the blogging scene.  You never really have closure.  My lovely friend who I never met, Lo, dropped of the blog grid several years ago.  She was very old, had trouble with her eyesight, and I can only assume she has passed…it has been several years.

Lo was wonderful, I loved that feisty old lady.  She was strongly liberal versus my conservative bent.  We did not agree on whom to vote for, but we both wanted the same thing for the world, for freedom, for people to get along.  If we had the chance we could have argued politics for hours and still remained great friends.

I had a similar relationship with Craig, a fraternity friend who often visited my blog and always left kind words.  When we met at our annual reunions we would talk politics for some time.  We usually agreed to disagree but left with respect for each other’s views, something that is very uncommon today.

Craig was killed a few years ago.  He was sideswiped on a highway, bike riding with his wife by a careless teenager.  I think the only person I have ever known in my life that would have forgiven that carless teen would be Craig.

I only recently realized I had not seen a blog post from another highly liberal friend who I had never met but reminded me very much of Lo and Craig for his love of life and deep compassion for all things and all people.  Rick Watson of “Life 101.”

Rick would often comment on my posts and I would comment on his.  He was a talented guitar player and composer along with his beautiful wife Jilda.  Theirs was apparently a story book romance, sweethearts from their teens. Rick’s love of Jilda, his nephew, music, bee keeping, dogs, and life itself came through crystal clear in his writing.

It has been months since I saw a post from Rick or had a comment on mine.  Rick posted EVERY day.  I remembered that his wife also had a blog that I had never visited.  With great trepidation I visited her blog today. 

Rick passed suddenly two months ago.  He had mentioned he was a bit under the weather in his last post. 

Covid-19.

I have no definitive belief in an afterlife.  The existence of life itself is too complicated for me. There must be a God or a force that has created life as we know it, and it must be a good force as most of the world has such beauty.  There must be some sort of an afterlife beyond my possible comprehension for life itself to make any sense…or maybe it doesn’t.

I hope there is something beyond where when the time comes I can once again argue politics with my friend Craig, and my friends Lo and Rick who I have never met.