Funeral For A Friend....

....yesterday (not the Elton John song but the real deal).  Sigh.....I guess he wasn't really a friend in the true sense of the word, in the era of "Facebook friend" empty lingo that has really devolved the meaning of the word "friend"; more of an acquaintance, a colleague, someone I've known for years who suffered from depression and other debilitating things while raising two little kids and trying to keep his world afloat.  It was a lovely funeral, full of love and funny stories and heartbreaking faces full of pain and sorrow.  While his adorable little girl, who won't understand any of this until she's much older, ran up and down the church aisle as a little girl in a room full of family and strangers would do in a church where an odd service is going on that isn't what you know.  I knew very few people there but was so happy to see the church full for him, and I sat with my few friends and we comforted each other.  After, a couple of us went for ice cream, for we discussed the sometimes debilitating depression that one of the three of us suffers, which I suspected but didn't really know until he let his silent tears fall during the service and mournfully confessed what it can be like to be so depressed that you can't get out of bed...you don't want to get out of bed...you don't want to do anything.....and in the hazy sunshine of the twilight, standing on the street breathing the heavy humid air of a late summer day, I felt so incredibly lucky to be alive and to be standing on the street, relatively carefree and grateful for my life and my friends and my family and that my chemicals in my body are working for me, not against me, which is totally the luck of the draw.

I hope your day is full of beautiful things, and because we all need a hug, here's one for you.