Kickass those sad phone calls

Kickass, the doorstop dog, turns it over to the keeper today to report on the telephone calls that are a fixture of his age group.  The chock in the voice makes the words almost unnecessary.  An old friend is on the line to report that she/he is gone and in the cases where there has been little or no advance warning, there is incredulity in the caller’s voice that life will somehow go on without the companion of all those decades.

Where did they go, all those days that, as the song goes “we thought would never end?”

There is talk of shared experiences that included her/him and vows to get together later when the sad rituals are complete.  And then the call ends and the warm spring sunshine is suddenly flush with images of the departed.  So she/he is not gone, not so long as we hold the memories.  It is all any of us will get after they make the phone call about us.  It is enough.