Rhett

04 July 2010

Here’s how oddly talented I am at remembering dates: I have to make a conscientious effort to forget the dates of bad events in my life, lest I rehash them even more than I otherwise would. For example, I honestly can’t recall on which date Beaker, my pet parakeet of 12+ years, died (though I know it was mid-July in 1998). In fact, just last week, it suddenly occurred to me, while driving to work, that it was the one year anniversary of the death of our cat Oliver. Then I had to stop and think for a minute – no, wait, the anniversary was still one day away.

As the fireworks remind me each year, today is the anniversary of Rhett’s death. It’s hard to believe he’s been gone for five years now. During his final year, we only saw each other a couple of times, but we talked on the phone a couple of dozen times. I called him, of course, to tell him Jennifer was pregnant. It was a phone call in three parts, as he had to keep calling back in between helping customers. Later, his conversations extolled the virtues of the finally-released Smile, and he kept trying to encourage me to learn guitar so that I could play on one of his songs. He wanted me to write the lyrics to a song of his, too, but I never got around to it, primarily because he never finished the music.

Anyway, here’s a video that was recorded in March, 1992. This spur of the moment bit of silliness was filmed by my Dad and stars some of my best friends ever.

It’s funny, I miss many of the people in this video. One of them, a younger kid with whom Rhett and I would study the bible, has likewise died. Another one of them was often in the car with Rhett and me as we drove around knocking on doors all day. His caustic sarcasm and brutal honesty was a great counterpoint in those car groups.  Another person in the video later went on to become my roommate for a while, then we drifted apart -or, rather, we purposely ripped apart – and then he contacted my wife and me to invite us back into his life. I’m glad we took him up on the offer. Our reunion, which lasted some six years, made for a far greater experience than the first time we were friends.

Now he shuns me.

I learned recently that he was laid off from his job and that an operation on his arm, which – surprise! – was somewhat botched, laid him up for a while, too. He’s got a lot of mouths to feed at home, more than anyone else I know, and I hope health, employment, and finances pick up for him soon. I’d like to help but, like I said, he shuns me.

Still, I hold out hope that one day again he’ll invite me back into his life. See – that’s the thing: he’s still around, waylaid a bit, but breathing and living life. So, though I miss Andy, I know there’s a chance he and I will be friends again. We parted ways and mended relationships in the past; so I am confident we can do it again one day. I miss Andy, truly. But most of all, I miss Rhett.