The past couple of months have been a lesson for me.
It has been one of those lessons that hopefully we all will have to encounter: things that go with getting older.
Someone could have handed me a manual, a guide book, or even Cliff Notes for me to prepare. Heck, they could have told me at just what point I'd need to be ready for all that I've been seeing and experiencing. But life so doesn't work that way.
On July 25, I will turn 52 years old.
At first glance, some would say, "well, heading down the backside of the hill." Others may say, "Hey, you're still young at heart."
There are elements of truth to both sides.
But one thing you learn quickly at this age is that there won't be as many as of your friends still on the trip as there were before. And that's the part that has been so jolting the past couple of months.
First, I lost one of the most dearest friends I've ever had when Jerri Wyatt Little lost her long battle to cancer. Jerri and I met as goofy young people at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville back in the mid-1980s. It was an instant connection -- as friends, though I think we both kind of knew that with time, we could have been something much more significant. We were always together, walking, laughing and talking about life. Our theme song - Oran 'Juice' Jones' song "The Rain." Why? It was just as silly and funny as we were. We sang it to each other and together all the time, even after we reconnected three decades later after life put a pause in our friendship.
Even then, as middle-aged folks with busy lives -- her with career, kids and spouses, me with career stuff -- it felt like 1986 when Jerri and I would Skype or talk on the phone, even though we were now in the 21st Century. We truly loved each other.
So when she told me that she was fighting for her life, she talked about God's grace and how she was getting stronger and better. It wasn't about dread. It was about the promise of tomorrow. That gave me life.
But ever since last fall, the calls were less frequent. I knew she was still fighting. And even after every phone call or text would go un-answered or unreturned, I was still hopeful that it was just another pause in our loving friendship. I got a text from another close friend of ours that the pause was even more significant. Jerri lost her battle in June.
I was devastated and cried in front of colleagues. It hurt. Still does. You don't get many friendships like the one I had with Jerri. There are just a few people in life that you just click with on every level. She was my friend. And I miss her.
Then just a week or so ago, I was perusing Facebook and ran across a post from a long time friend from my hometown of Nashville, Tenn. She was lamenting the death of Lisa Stewart, a childhood friend of hers.
I stopped and thought, "Is that the same Lisa Stewart I went to Tennessee State University with, both of us dreaming of careers in journalism/communications??"
Lisa and I had lost touch not long after I left Tennessee State to take a job as a reporter in another city with a black newspaper. That was the early 1990s, a time we both knew we wanted to be members of the media.
She and I met as communications students at Tennessee State and instantly bonded. We talked the same career language, but we also talked about life and growing up in Nashville. We ate together a lot, rode around in her little brown Honda, went to media events (I wish i still had the recording she made of me asking Chuck D a really bad question during an appearance of his at Vanderbilt University in the late 1980s). And we used to just talk. And laugh. Well, Lisa talked because she talked a lot. And fast. She was high energy. But she was sweet.
Even after I left Nashville and had long lost her number, I wondered about Lisa. I heard she may had gotten married and kind of settled down. I was hoping she also would have parlayed great radio and television internships into a great job at home. But over the years, I wondered how Lisa was doing and if sometime we could laugh and talk again.
After seeing Facebook, I realized I would not. That was the same Lisa I remembered. She was killed by a drunk driver. But from everyone I talked to, Lisa continued to be that ray of light, that high, loving energy, that she was as Melo-D at TSU and at WFSK radio where I trained her. Sigh....
The lesson? At 52?
As long and as dark as some days can be, life is short. I've reached a point in my life where the news of close or longtime friends passing will come more often than before, even though I've lost many friends and family members over the years. When you're younger, you see it more as an anamoly. When you're 52, you see it more often as you sometimes find yourself looking through the obits in your hometown paper.
Death isn't new to me. I had a cousin who was killed when I was barely a teenager. My grandmother died my first year in college. My father lost his battle with his demons when he was 45. I had a friend who I still think about, Karl London, who lost his battle with cancer when I was 14 or 15. We've all gone through it.
But now, it seems I'm always hearing of a classmate, an old friend or acquaintance, or one of my friends' parents or loved ones seeing their circle of life close. I can't say I am surprised because, well, at this age, you know. You are beginning that season. It reminds me of an episode of "The Cosby Show" when Cliff wondered why his dad, Russell, was reading the obituaries every day. Now I kinda see why.
Oh, it's not a morbid, sad thought. Well, maybe sad in some ways. But really it's just one of those realities of life that becomes clear to you.
My mother told me not long after a close relative passed that death is part of life and it's just God saying that person has done their work and it is their time. We have to accept it as God's loving will.
I get that. I do. One day, maybe that will be said of me.
So as another birthday comes for me, I thank God for another deep, fulfilling breath of life and seeing others close to me take in the same.
But I know each day that I've truly entered a different season in life.
