TH' FOURTH DOC(tor)

First came Doc's crossing in June of 2014.  Then a whole year went by, and then another month after that, then two years, and then-- how can this be?!-- three years all flew by.  Just a few weeks ago, June 12th 2018, the forth anniversary of Doc's crossing came and laid it's head down in my lap.  How can this be at all possible?  It just has to be taken as one of those Great Mysteries, as an article of faith; try to wrestle it with logic, and next thing you know you find your shoulder's pinned to th' ground as th' Mystery sits upon your chest and it you begin to realize your foolishness for trying to suss it out in th' first place.

Friends, it makes absolutely no sense, like why airplanes fly and boats float and how McDonald's sells all them 'burgers and people like th' music of Justin Beiber, so it's best just to try not to figure it all out.  Doc is not only gone, he has been gone for four years now.  #OhDiscordia.

I've been lately thinking about my life's time

all th' things I've done and how it's been

and I can't help but thinking in my own mind

I know I'm gonna hate to see it end...

---John Denver

Poems, Prayers and Promises

I have composed something to Doc's memory each year since his crossing, and as June came into sight o'er th' horizon and grew bigger in th' spyglass, I turned my mind again to what should I say?? what COULD I say?  One of th' things I discovered not too terribly long after Doc's crossing was that there was a great deal of writing that he had done as drafts and never finished.  I thought perhaps I would be able to finish them, th' way well-turned fans have finished and then expanded upon th' Universe that Douglas Adams left us, or even perhaps Dr. Seuss.  I soon discovered it is very unlikely that I am th' person to do that:  right now, I just ain't got th' chops.  And by "right now" I mean "probably th' foreseeable future; maybe even 7+ years into th' foreseeable future."  Then I began to fear that perhaps I didn't have th' chops to write anything in his memory THIS year; especially in th' aftermath of loosing my girlfriend, Kristine, to heart failure on Maundy Thursday in late March.  I was too raw, too sick with a sense of mourning and loss (and, yes, guilt-- always that bald old bastard, Guilt) to think I could write anything at all, let alone something worth general publication about Doc.

"it's best to speak true and smoke out th' devil," says th' grandmother of Stephen King's main character in his short story LT's Theory of Pets, and in keeping to that edict, let th' truth be bold and let it be hereby known that o'er time, Doc's Ghost has been fading a lil' bit by lil' bit to th' point that I believe he is coming more and more to his Final Rest.  Time does this, and it is a Right and Proper Thing, too, but I've always LIKED it when Doc's Ghost has sat by me, in th' car or on th' bench or in th' back of my classroom, looking all o'er things.  it would occur to me later in June that, in th' words of my Franciscan Brother, Friar John, "I was missing the act of missing him."  Kristine's Ghost hung 'round me and held my hand for only a week or so before passing into The Mind of God and Final Rest; Doc, who's final weeks and days were no doubt sheer hell, leading him to end his own life, had a more restive Ghost.  To realize that after 4 years his Ghost was beginning to find it's peace and he didn't need to check in as much (and, similarly, *I* didn't *need* him to check in as much, either), I began to sense him less and less. Again, this is Right & Proper, it is a Good and Glorious Thing Indeed, but it's also a change from th' status quo of almost half a decade and I was frankly loathe to have it all end.

*******

Indeed, try tho' I might, I wasn't able to finish this post until well, well later in th' year.  I'm cheating to all hell n' back by going in and posting this as June 12 (and if any o' y'all are right smart and know your stuff, you'll no doubt say now, what's THAT doing there?! when you scroll thru th' feed and realize that from June until October there was nuthin' from me, his Custodian, at all, on Th' Actual Anniversary Day of his Crossing O'er.  Didn't have th' chops?  Hell, I didn't have 'em in June nor July nor August when school started.  It's only with th' chill of Autumn in th' air and The Thinning of The Veil between th' worlds of th' Living and th' Dead that I'm able to sit here and try to add anything else...

...except, I can't.  Months later, regardless of th' post date I make this, I can't put together th' words to make it all right n' proper.  I can't say what I want to say 'cuz somewhere just below th' surface I don't even KNOW what I want to say.  I know I need to honour and mark this day of his Leavetaking; it is Th' Right Thing To Do, but I don't want it to become a mechanical, semi-meaningless thing, either.  This is more than, say, remembering V-J Day, or something that is historically important but so far removed from my own timeline and experience as to be hollow-- all surface and no depth.  It's important I say something, and yet, I can't.  What's more, I haven't been able to in something like 4 months.  Maybe it'll all come together better next year, in 2019...  Until then, or until I find th' words that fit together like tight puzzle pieces, know that you are forever in my heart, Doc.  I love you, and I miss you.