Old friends...

Time it was and what a time it was, it was...
A time of innocence
A time of confidences

Long ago it must be; I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They're all that's left you

-- Simon & Garfunkle, Old Friends

Dana answered an ad I had placed in the Austin American Statesman, for a roommate. I had just graduated from UT and she was still in her junior year. She said she answered the ad because I was a vegetarian. She had an Irish Setter named Mandy. I had 3 cats. We all got along just fine, though I remember our first big fight. She locked herself in her room and wouldn't talk to me. I told her through the door that if we didn't work this out we were giving up on our friendship. We didn't give up.

Dana never gives up.

Dana has been living with ALS for 2 1/2 years. This weekend she must decide for herself and her family and her friends whether to let go of her life or whether to commit to living with life-support 24 hours a day for the rest of her life, whatever that might be.

Can you imagine us years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly
How terribly strange to be seventy

Old friends
Memory touches the same years
Silently sharing the same fears

Seventy doesn't seem so terribly strange anymore, but those fears -- we are still silently sharing those. Dana doesn't talk about that. At times it takes such incredible courage to live with unbearable pain, loss, and sadness. It takes no less an amount of courage to let go.