To Bob And All My Friends.

The other day I'd intended to write a blog about friends. I'd had a lovely lunch with an occasional good friend and I'd wanted to talk about how there are some people in one's life where time doesn't matter. We won't see each other for months or even years and yet... we can't stop talking. We still have so much in common. I had an entire treatise in my head.

Then, I heard about my old friend Bob. He died friday of a massive heart attack leaving his wife and his two daughters alone. He was 57.

I had not talked to Bob in a good 26 years or more. I know we went to his 30th birthday party. My husband, Phil, sang at his wedding. We were close, once.

I went to the funeral. I knew very few people there.. I knew three. His wife (who only remembered me after I told her Phil had sung at the wedding) and two good old friends I'm embarrassed to say I'd lost touch with.

I feel a bit devastated.

Bob was my friend and was good to me. Time came between us and I lost him long ago. Makes me think of a song at the time written by James Taylor.. "I've seen fire and I've seen rain... But I always thought that I'd see you again."

It never occurred to me that I'd lose him forever. He was part of a family of theatre I had once. It was at the beginning for all of us. Les Moonves was there then. Richard Chamberlain, Patty Duke Austin, Lily Tomlin,  Quintin Crisp, Heather Carson.

We were a family. We were 20 something years old. We had the world in our hands. We just didn't know it. I was there and Bob was there.

Out we leapt into the future. We never looked behind and we should have. We should have kept that initial family growing and going into the future together.

There are songs.