Dear Friends gone to soon

About Joe -- 20 July 1990:

As you get older, saying from the past take on new meanings.

I don’t know the origin of this one, but it goes something like this:  “Minutes seem to last forever when you are young . . . But . . . years seem to vanish at the snap of your finger when you are old.”

Getting dressed for church this morning, I found this note in a box of cuff-links that belonged to Joe, a long-term friend.  We had known each other for years, worked projects together (mostly at church,) and spent endless hours in fellowship.  Ours was one of those your home, my home kinda things.  We both grew up in Houston, Texas.

On this summer Friday, over the phone, Joe related the events of his and Kathleen's family vacation in Colorado accompanied by their three grown kids, their spouses, and all the grandkids.  I had observed the children growing up, moving away, marriage, grandchildren . . . All that stuff.

Afterwards, the phone rings and Kathleen screams “Joe has shot himself.”  I inhaled and time stood still.

Just a couple hours earlier not the slightest hint of what was to come.

Here almost three decades later, it still makes me cry and wonder.

You can wear yourself down trying to figure this suicide thing out.  It is all so perplexing and when it hits home desperation comes to visit.  Whatever you conclude can never be validated.  Left to wonder.

FHAS–About-Joe–V3-GP– 0312.2018