Saying Farewell to a Friend

I write this blog, PayneStakings, and I also write Pawhuska Trails.  In Pawhuska Trails I try to write about Pawhuska and I vary in what I write.  But within Pawhuska Trails I state that in PayneStakings I undertake a more personal writing.  I wrote about David Meriable earlier today in Pawhuska Trails and as I read it again, I wondered, was it too personal?  It had the touch of melancholy you might expect when writing about losing a friend but, it also had our history of friendship and some nonsense about mischief.  I tried to make it about David.  This is about me, or my feelings I should say.

I had met David's children long ago when they were little but tonight, at the funeral home in Tulsa, was the first time I had seen them since then.  As I walked in I was greeted by David's daughter Dawn who recognized me from photographs.  I actually thought my Red Boots were the give away but she said no, that it was from other things.  An old friend, Francis, was sitting nearby, obvious that she had been crying.  We exchanged greetings and I spoke to a few others and then I moved closer to the open casket.  As I did, strong feelings rose in me and I said aloud, "This is hard but I have to do it."  I removed my hat, a Pat Garrett, and moved closer.  A young man asked, "What is hard?"  I replied, "Saying goodbye to David."  God it was harder than I thought.

I stood for a moment in silence and I looked at David, lying before me and tears began to flow from my eyes.  My lips trembled and I'm glad no one asked me anything or made me talk.  I needed a moment alone, in the room with people there, and by not turning around and facing them, I took it.  I was so focused on David that I was not understanding words behind me.  I was hearing the voices, yes, but not grasping what they said.  I did not want to turn around, just yet.  I wasn't the only man who cried, but there is still that old thing in me that says we are not supposed to cry, that crying is reserved for women.  But I cry at some things.

I'm older and tougher now, yet what is the tender side of me is more tender now. I've always had a problem with movies about dogs, cats and horses.  I can't stand to see them hurt, abandoned or killed, even though it's only a movie.  If I watch "Hondo," I'm fine until the scene where Hondo's dog is killed.  I don't cry but I feel such sadness inside and it hurts the movie for me.  Friends have told me what a great movie "The Warhorse" is and I'm sure it is; but I know it must have frightening scenes of animal abuse, injury and death, and I'm afraid that I can' make it through them.  Worse, I fear having nightmares from it.  So, I'll probably never see it.

I've been present at the funerals for many friends and I've even been there when my son Stephen William Payne was laid to rest in Pawhuska, and that, my friends, was the hardest thing I've  ever had to do in my life.  I made it through his death, arranging the funeral, putting up with criticism from friends of Stephen's mother who had no vested interest in our family, the journey from Tyler, Texas to Pawhuska, but closing the lid on my son's casket was just too much for me.  But I was fifty-eight years of age then and maybe I was tougher in that tender side.  David and I both said that we had been to too many funerals together.  I cannot recall all of the names:  Bobbie Hughes, Ray Roberts, Mr. Arnold are among them but there are many more.

But saying good bye to David was hard.  I asked his daughter if the casket would be open tomorrow and when she said no, I walked back for what I knew would be our last moment.  There will be others, yes, that's in my beliefs, but they are down the road, in another place, in another form.  But in this place, here in Oklahoma and on this spinning ball we shared, this is was it; the last chance to say good bye.  I'll say good bye tomorrow, in a public place with many people, but this one was personal.  It was the one I felt most.  And I know I am grieving and others allow me to grieve, in my own way, personal, yet public.

Does it hurt?  Is it painful?  Yes, of course, but its more the deep sadness and sense of loss that I feel.  It's a feeling that I can not put into words, nor can I paint nor photograph it.  It has color but they are somber shades, purples and muddy colors, mixed together in a smeared way that leaves no one color, not a color to love, nor one to hate.  Just a muddy, dark, mixed color, and a cacophony of streaming memories.

And regret.  I hope David knew that I cared for him, that I felt joy to see him again when I did, and warmth when we talked about our boyhood home and we remembered friends.  We talked a little about The Big Indian who left us in 2008.  They were joyful memories but I felt that were tempered by the fact that Jess was no longer here and no matter how much we laughed and how much better the stories got in telling, we always stopped our remembrance with a feeling of sadness.

As I said, this is personal and it's about me.  It's about my feeling of deep sadness right now and how powerful it feels; how small I feel in its presence and how powerless I feel to deal with it. It will lessen, it will get better, but right now, I want to grieve.  Not to feel sorry for myself, but to grieve and those two feelings are different.  We feel sorry for ourselves when we've lost a competition and someone got what we feel we deserved.  When we've lost our girl to the other fellow or some unqualified person got the job we should have.  But this is different; it's not sorry for myself, or even for us.  It's the loss of a friend, of someone I knew and had known a long time.  I calculated it today; fifty-four years.  There was then, of high school and just after, and then now, the present and all the years in recent time we have known each other.  I knew little about years in between.  Yet the connection is there.

I'll be alright, but for now, I want to grieve, I want to miss David, I want to think about him and to miss him.  And if there is a lesson to be learned, I hope I learn it.  I have those friends yet who are so dear to me, and I hope I find the strength in me to tell them, in person, how dear they are to me, how much I value them.  If I just say it one time, at least I'll know that I did not fail to make sure that they knew I cared for them.

But if they read this, by chance, since I'm only posting it and not mailing it or putting it on Facebook, well:
Ronnie, Terry, Cherri, Peggy, Judy, Jackie Sue, I love you and you mean the world to me.

I told you it was personal.