A Lifelong Friend has Passed

[Janet]

When I was little, there was a family that lived across the street from us and we all became very close. They had 3 boys, the middle one is the first one listed in my Baby Book as a friend. I have so many stories of our lives together, but for now I want to focus on Denny..he was the oldest boy.

He passed away this week at the age of 56. I saw the name on the front page of the paper and immediately my heart is saying, please not the Denny I know. When I went to the obits in the paper, it was him. I was crushed. He was like a brother to me. When my younger brother and I were in grade school, they moved out in the country. We would go out there in the summer for a week and then the two youngest boys would come to our house for a week. It was a great time.

I remember Denny use to turn the Beatles up on the record player real loud and play his drums perfectly with the music. It was so fun. As we grew older, we didn't see each other quite as much, mostly in passing, but fairly frequently. I just saw Denny in at Wal Mart a few weeks back and he didn't mention that he was ill. His Mom said he didn't want to talk about it.

Saturday (yesterday) morning I went to the funeral home to say goodbye to one of my 'brothers.' I can't believe he's gone. His Mom is handling it very well, she has such strong faith. When I walked in the viewing room, she was up by the casket and when she saw me walk in, she said my name, everyone looked and she came to me instead of waiting for me to come to her. Pat then proceeded to tell of when I was little (a toddler) I would be sitting on the couch and the middle boy Mike would hit me and make me cry. He would then walk away and when I quit crying he would hit me again to make me cry. Don't know why both families ever thought that was funny, except that he would never hit me hard, but I was such a baby I would cry at the drop of a hat.

Sorry to ramble, but so many memories have been rushing through my mind since Denny's death. Not just memories of him and his family, but it has started a rush of childhood memories that I havent' thought of in years.