I am not prone to looking backward, but every time I go over the Gulley Memorial Bridge, I miss Ed, or Big Ed, as I called him, my friend, gifted artist,  farmer and windbag.

Ed was so good to us. He built a bridge down the hill behind the farm to get us to our woods,  which were cut off by a stream.

Ed made a bench for us to sit on out there, and generously gave me a ton of his farm art, most of which we will have. He was a monster of a man; he hauled all the building supplies for the bridge over his shoulder.

Ed asked me to come to visit him every day – I learned that this was not a wish most of his family shared – because he wanted me to write about his sickness and death and give it meaning, and, he told me because he wanted me to write a book about him.

And I think we were friends because we loved each other. Two windbags from different ends of the universe who could not have been more different, but who somehow were alike at the core.

He loved Maria very much and respected her art and listened to her.

Ed wanted me to write about his death, Maria to write a book about his art, and one of his children to write a book about his poetry. I looked him in the eye, took his hand, and told him I had bad news for him: his eyes widened, and he waited.

“Ed, you’re not Winston Churchill, I’m not going to write a book about you, and neither is anybody else, I don’t think.” He was quiet for a moment and then roared with laughter. “This is why I love you,” he said, “you never bullshit me.”

A few days later, he was begging me to help him die. I couldn’t figure out how to do it.

The last few years were tough on me friendship wise. One close friend lied to me repeatedly and is out of my life, a second, and I argued and drifted apart, another committed suicide, and Ed got cancer.

I’ve never been good or lucky with friends, and I’ve backed away from my expectations regarding friendship.

Whenever we come to the Gulley Bridge, which has already weathered many storms and floods, I think of  Ed and how good it was that he was out there, ready to rush over and grab a bear the police had to shoot in my pasture and take it home. Who else on the earth would do that for us?

Nobody in this world had ever had my back more than Ed. And on a farm, that is no small deal. He loved to help people.

Over the last few weeks, I seem to be making another friend, and it feels very good. We meet at a diner 15 miles from the farm, and we have lunch. We talk easily – today, it was about age, grandkids, and creativity. It is very easy to talk to him and listen to him.

He is not intimidated by me or put off by me. I can feel that.

Our friendship is very bounded. I’ve never been to his house, and he’s never been to mine, and I don’t think that will change.

I admire what he is doing with his life, and he respects what I am doing, and we are both too old and busy for bullshit. Paul Moshimer and Ed and the friend who lied taught me to keep my expectations low with friends; you never know how things will break.

Having a good lunch pal every few weeks is a precious thing; we don’t need to be up to our neck in each other’s life or be blood brothers to the death and having somebody you can trust to talk to at lunch now and then is just fine. I’m learning to accept life as it is, not as I might want it to be.

My new friend is engaged with life, and so am I.  We have to plan our lunches weeks in advance.

This is a good place to leave the friendship for a while, maybe for good. Sue Silverstein at Bishop Maginn is a good friend too, and I see her once a week for a half-hour, yet it feels like I’ve known her for years.

Ed was old school, and his idea of friendship was something out of a Western movie, he loved to come rushing over to the farm and save us from whatever mess we had gotten ourselves into. He lived to do that, and then rag on me for being mostly useless.

I think of loving him every time I cross the Gulley Bridge. Like him, the bridge is a stubborn and unyielding thing that I suspect will still be there long after I’m gone.

Miss you, Ed, I hope you aren’t boring the angels with your interminable farm and animal stories and your rantings about the price of milk. They are probably rolling their eyes by now; you like to tell that milk story over and over again.

By the time you died, I knew it by heart.