Today, Maria and I attended a memorial service for our oldest friend in the country, someone we had known before we got married, someone I met more than 30 years ago at a Quaker Yearly Meeting one summer.

(Above photo, another portrait Maria reading at night. The spirit of her.)

We stayed in touch. I didn’t know he was here until I moved here. A hundred people came; he was the gentlest, kindest human, the best example of a real man.

And he had a rich, meaningful, and long life—godspeed to him. We celebrated it.

 

(Lulu and Fanny fighting off the heat, each in their own way.)

He was a Quaker also.

At the service, I met a man from the tiny Quaker Meeting not too far from me. I’ve kept my Quaker membership from New Jersey and would like to switch it here, although I don’t really need to.

I can just go when I want.

I miss the meetings, the silence, the thinking, the community, and the call to good.

At first, I thought going to the meeting was an excellent way to honor my friend, but then I realized I wanted to go back for me. The Quaker faith is the closest I’ve ever come to finding God, and I’d like to continue the search.

The Quakers took me in when I was 14 and desperate for a safe place. I felt that I had come home, spiritually.

They asked no questions and were always there to help. Quakerism gave me a model of the human I wish to be and the faith I wish to have. If I wasn’t there, I knew where I wanted to go.

I’m not there yet, but I’m always looking. I’ve missed the meetings a lot lately.

The Quakers also taught me that I didn’t have to mourn the dead, but to celebrate their lives with us. That idea turned me around.

 

(My wall. My go-to books. You can tell a writer from the books on his wall and the muses scattered around.)

I’m going to go to the weekly meeting there tomorrow. I’ve invited Maria to come, but I’m not sure if she wants to go, at least not regularly. I’m thinking of regularly going again. She and I have been there once or twice before.

The memorial service was two hours long; many people loved my friend. I thought what people might say about me at a memorial service would have been very different, I suspect. It sure would be that large.

My friend never provoked or offended anyone in his life that I know of. He did a great deal of good.

 

(I call these the Five Friends chair in honor of the good friends I have and those I hope to make. I’ll be honest, I don’t have three at the moment, but I might have two. I imagine the day when five friends are sitting in those chairs.)

I spent the afternoon reading and resting, and thinking.

Losing an old friend opens you up, and I didn’t have that many, to begin with. As long as I’ve been here in the country, he was in my life, not every day but regularly.

He’s watched me stumble along this journey from the beginning, and I suspect I met him uneasy more than once. He and his wife have been there for all of it, always offering support, even when they were bewildered by what I was doing.

Tomorrow will be a quiet morning. I hope to go to the Quaker Meeting, and then in the afternoon, Maria and I will see the new “Elvis” movie. It sounds pretty wild, and I’m eager to see it.

I suspect I will write about it. I’m remembering what a beautiful voice Elvis had, even as his life crumbled all around him.

 

My garden looks thick and lush. I love the way it draws the late afternoon light. I see seeds growing and buds popping up. The first bouquet will be in a week or two.