Cliff

Three years since he died. Am I going to do this every year? Yes, maybe. Maybe this blog is just for him, and everything I post in-between is incidental.


There are moments I still re-live in my mind. The day Sheri called to tell me he was gone. Having to call another friend to give him the news. The first time I spoke on the phone to each of his brothers. Talking on the phone to his wife in Chicago. How I couldn't sleep and his face loomed large in my mind, like an over-sized head above my head in bed, bearing down on my addled mind. Buckets and buckets of sadness, disbelief, and remorse. How to bear it? Re-reading all of his letters, finding and listening to all the mixed tapes he made me over the years. Phone calls, emails, planning the trip to Chicago for his memorial. The beautiful old room in the former church, David playing piano as people arrived. Cliff's parents . . .


And then somehow, eventually, life settles back into itself. It's not like you have a choice- you can't keep it burning in the fore-front of your mind forever even if you wanted to. But it's never gone. Cliff is never gone.


http://www.balampman.blogspot.ca/search/label/Cliff%20Doerksen.