The Quiet

Our good friend Kathala died last week.  This week we attended a visitation and a funeral. We went to the cemetery and we mingled with the flood of people who came to say goodbye.   There were tears aplenty.  There will be more to come. They come at surprising times.  The house is quiet now.

Almost every Friday afternoon for over ten years, I've had a date with Kathala and Sandra and Judith.   We'll still get together, but it won't be the same and we all know it.  We met at her house a lot of the time.  We talked nonstop for hours and hours and laughed and cried on repeat. She would never let us leave until everything was discussed in great detail.  Whenever anyone said anything about weirdness of the week, Kathala would pause in surprise and then say, "You know what?" and we would laugh hysterically in response.

Then she'd dive into her thoughts about why this weird thing happened or why it shouldn't have happened or why it keeps happening.  And today I'm just wishing I could hear her say, "You know what?" a bunch more times.