Fall colors changing seasons changing lives

On Monday evening, of this week, I was perusing a technical journal I wrote for in in the mid-seventies and was working on a bit of a tribute to the solidarity, brotherhood and sisterhood of the group of technical professionals – how it has changed my life and engendered and fostered lasting friendships.

And then around 8 PM my phone rang and I was summoned to a local hospital to be with a dear family member who succumbed to a long and exhausting illness.

In the end, she went quickly and peacefully – something all of us could
only wish for and hopefully achieve in our own personal journey through life.

What is kind of ironic were my thoughts leading up to that evening
on something as simple as a subscription to a hand-printed newsletter
from the seventies and how, by chance, I requested a free sample so
many years ago – that so many lasting friendships have been cast and hewn
by the fires of time and have resisted every challenge – including
death.

As word traveled throughout the evening it became quite apparent that my network of friends were way closer that I thought – They quickly formed a physical and spiritual circle around my wife and I – taking our hands in a time of need.

My thanks go out to this immediate circle of folks whose love and devotion I never entirely understood – now it is crystal clear.

And to my regular readers I offer a heart felt thanks – for those correspondents, reliable as gravity, have understood, that over the last 90 days or so, things have been somewhat difficult here.

Chapters are written and then closed – we now move on to the next phase of our life – Fall to Winter and then beyond.