Loss

I lost a very good friend recently--suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack.  Bill Beyer and I had been close since college and had shared a lot of personal experience over the years: Luther college, Hothorpe Hall in England, Upward Bound work, canoe trips, winter camping, travel, and in recent years a partnership in a maple syrup venture on our family farm.  He was a frequent presence in our home, and to my kids growing up more of an "uncle" than either of my brothers.  With the exhale of a breath he is gone. 

Life is ephemeral and close friendships are precious. I will miss Bill immensely.  This and other recent and imminent deaths have thinned my circle of closest friends.  It is a condition of the stage of life I have entered.  I am reminded to reach out to those I care about and to those who care for me.