August 14, 2021
Saturday
Now we have Liz home and recuperating from her hip replacement (with PT visits), Shayna doing most of the housework, and she and I sharing cooking and cleaning. Liz is feeling pretty good while still taking minimal pain meds and napping a lot. Friends have been sending or bringing over meals, care packages, and treats.
The bad news is hearing about the death of one of my old co-workers from Youth Options, an agency we worked at together for about ten years. Mostly Keith K. and I worked together as colleagues developing a youth-led supportive counseling project but we also worked together preparing a supervision plan for a young employee he supervised who had challenges with work rules. Keith was always one of the most positive, friendly, and energetic staff members. He was respected and liked by the young people he mentored and he was an integral staff member of the agency's PEAKS program that provided a adventure-based camping experience to inner city and state conservatorship adolescents. A younger man; Keith passed away in his sleep, adding to the mystery and the wrinkles of life... and time.
I ponder how an old fart like me can bounce through the rough and tumble of life's wrinkles in time and then another man who ostensibly is traveling down a somewhat similar track can suddenly be sidetracked onto a different cosmic spur that takes them into the unknown territory post "living". I'm reminded of many of the metaphors in Tolkien's short story, "Leaf By Niggle", in which the protagonist boards a train to the "back country" after making himself ill taking care of others in his neighborhood. With this short dispatch I honor the life of my friend Keith.
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