and there i was just sitting and listening letting it all in mulling it over in my heart hearing him talk and talk and talk because he needed that space that time for speaking for telling the story that major story of all our lives the story of the dying of the light the dying of the light and it was so moving as he spoke through his experiences of letting his father go and at so young an age only forty two or something like that and here he is barely nineteen years of age and he himself a father of a baby girl and yet this little fellow sitting before me has truly lived in this his short life for as he said himself in his own words that he chose to be present as his own daughter was being born and that he chose also to be present as his father drew his last breaths and as the machine beeped and beeped and beeped and slowing then to a continual drone of death that droned away until unplugged and i was moved and i was touched as the other four boys sat and listened and embraced him in that listening and that listening is a powerful metaphorical embrace and it was powerful so powerful that it was empowering of all there present and i continue in this world to wonder at the opportunities where i am graced by these chance occurrences and moved and touched and inspired and shaken to my foundations and yes i do need this shaking of my foundations and i do need my roots pulled somewhat because that is the way with life we are made stronger in being challenged and all the old wisdoms come calling at the door of my memory that adversity makes us stronger that we would not grow as persons were we not tested in the fires of such adversity that like st paul said of old that we are somehow broken but never crushed with christ on our side and to my old and fragmenting mind this christ can be a metaphor for all new life that is created within us by those trials we experience as we make our way through life and these words i want them to be a wisdom for me i want them to be reminders for me of the tenuous hold we have on the fragile plant that life is and with my former friends who are now dead and gone lost to the world of the flesh these words are poor mementos of my conversations with you and here as i type i remember gerard smith and gerry donnelly and eugene murphy all gone but their presence remains in my life by their questions their enthusiasm and their humanity and these words are forming themselves against the background of the cold drops of rain spattering the window panes of my attic study and i sit and let the click of the keys of my laptop be a mantra a sort of prayer for these my late friends and for the boy whom i listened to today i still marvel at your courage because you are a liver of life you are a drinker in of the mystery it is in its birth and in its death but yet you must be good to yourself you must learn to listen to your own paining heart and be gentle on it for you have much life to live...
