What Happens To My Friends

What happens to my friends happens to me.
This week
a child's attempt at suicide,
a much-loved mother's death,
tough treatment for a dangerous cancer,
one home burgled by a soon-to-divorce wife,
a visit from a favorite sister,
death of a cherished cat,
the PhD completed,
postponement, again, of that distant son's visit.

What Happens to My Friends

Bob Komives

My mother died five years ago.
I did not earn a Phd.
Yet, this week, I mourn and I celebrate.

Do I live my life too much in others?
Or, are my friend's lives truly part of mine?
Do I really feel some of what they feel?
Or, do I just imagine how I would feel?

I know that life this week was otherwise plain.
Nothing much happened to me or by me.
But, I spent very little time in the plain.
I travelled peaks and valleys
along paths in the heartlands of my friends.
I suppose I was not needed there.
I was invited,
and I accepted.

I accepted parts of what happened to my friends.
(Only they can have it all.)
Those parts,
in their own way,
in my own way,
are parts of what now has happened to me.

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 2000 :: What Happens To My Friends :: ,9405