Best of the Welcome Columns


Best of the Welcome Columns

Author: Evans, Bill
Waking up the next day

Happy Day After Thanksgiving, everyone! If you’re like me, you wake up to this day wishing that the Thanksgiving holiday feeling could linger for a day or two longer as you’re not yet ready to be so forcefully plunged into the Christmas shopping season with the ringing of the Black Friday morning alarm clock. As I get older, it becomes easier to connect to a feeling of deep thankfulness at this time of year and I bet that this is true for most of you as well. This year, it will be even easier for me to keep that Thanksgiving feeling close and let me tell you why. It started with a phone call from a good friend on Monday afternoon. Most of us have had at least one of these calls before – you can tell by the tone of voice on the other end of the line that there is bad news to relate. One’s mind races in the few seconds between the knowing that something is wrong and the finding out of what exactly it is. In this case, it was news of a close mutual friend undergoing quadruple bypass surgery the following morning. I did a quick inventory of other people I know of who have had this surgery. Bobby Osborne came to mind and then David Letterman, of all people, and more recently Bill Clinton. It wasn’t a long list. My friend and I tried to calm each other’s nerves with reassurances that bypass surgery is a common procedure, that our friend was in good hands and that there was really nothing to worry about. This conversation now feels like a rite of passage: in that moment, I realized that I have now been on earth long enough to lose close friends in the way one thinks about losing grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts. And the next thought? Well, you might have guessed it already: there for the grace of God, go you and I. It’s always been this way, since our very first breaths. We are all in this thing together, always. What happens to someone else, will someday happen to us; the pain that others experience, we too will feel someday. As you might have expected, the bypass surgery went well and our friend is expected to fully recover. I’ll give him a call in a few days to check in and I’m looking forward to hearing what’s likely to be a typically hilarious take on his entire medical adventure. We’ll play music together again next year. So, I’m going to remain thankful for a few more days. Bill Evans bill@billevansbanjo.com

Posted: 11/25/2011