Loss, friends, and coffee

While technically I still owe this blog an intro post, I think this will do nicely:
http://www.handmadenews.org/article/index.php?id=1231

I’m thankful for that article as I have more profound things on my mind today than myself. I was recently lucky enough to find a local indie coffee house (www.undergroundscoffeehaus.com ). There was a well established base of regulars when I first came, but the few on the fringe and the owner made me more than welcome. As it became obvious I was becoming a regular too, I got friended on FaceBook and invited to a bar-b-que. I told my friends about the place, asked the owner to host a Hollywood Craft Mafia event there, and I even brought my mom. Just as I felt like I was getting to know some of the people who’d been there from the start, they suffered an enormous blow: the sudden death of one of the inner circle.

Just like any other family, they banded together, held a private memorial, attended the public memorial, tried to be supportive of his wife and family, and grieved. And they continue to grieve, as I do with them, for the loss of a great man, a good man, a talkative man, a man who filled an auditorium with mourners.

As I sat through Boone’s three hour memorial, I had a lot of thoughts. I thought his students really loved him. I thought his lessons will fade much more slowly because of the timing of this loss. I thought that I wouldn’t mind having an auditorium full of people whose lives I had touched, though I’d rather live to see them there. I thought how impossibly difficult this loss and pain must be for his family, especially having to bear it publicly. I thought about getting on an exercise plan, really. I thought how little my paper pushing day job aligns with how I want to impact the word. I thought about community, belonging, and hope. These are the things that I will continue to write about here, as learn what I can from Boone’s death. He was a teacher; I think he’d like that.