I was doing really well, there, for a little while, on the whole blogging front. And I assure you that I meant to continue in like fashion, but I got a bit derailed. Life, as it is wont to do, has to change things up from time to time, in ways both wonderful and terrible. Sadly, this most recent vicissitude was of the terrible sort.

On July 8, I lost a dear friend in a bad accident. Jonas, a former coworker, fell onto the subway tracks and was electrocuted.

He was two weeks out from his 29th birthday.

There’s been a lot of death in my life. I’ve been to a lot of funerals and mourned a lot of people. But the accidents are always the worst. It’s not so much a sense of loss as it is of theft, a violent aberration from the natural order of things even though we all know (for haven’t we been taught time and again?) that aberrations are the very order of things?

It was my first funeral in New York. There’s something different about them here, too. No concrete plan for “after,” when everyone gathers at a church or a home to collapse into each other with the weight of their grief. No, everyone just sort of evaporates away, left to do their crying and railing as we all do most everything here—alone. This is a lonely place, even when you’re surrounded by people. I’m infinitely grateful to have someone I love who’s always there when I need him, who willingly gives of his strength when I have none of my own to spare. I would have been lost without him.

I keep stumbling upon little pieces of my friend in my life. They make me happy and sad, by turns. He was kind, optimistic, talented, and dedicated. He had a very infectious giggling laugh, and a unique view of the world. He was a beautiful soul, and I miss him. It’s still harder to write this than I thought it would be.

Next post will see a return to our usual crafty endeavors, and hopefully an introduction to our new (old) piano. But for now, there is a little silence for a fallen ronin, and a little prayer for a departed friend.