Respect.  I give Ollie space and respect, and he does the same for me.  Tomorrow is that third Sunday in June that I pretend doesn’t exist anymore. I am off work and not sure what I will do, maybe meet a friend for coffee, but thankfully I will be having some night hospital duties to keep my mind busy and not entangled in a jumbled cauldron of remote but pleasant memories filled with swollen pride as well as brutal and bizarre memories that I try to keep in cold storage most of the year, but unfortunately, they always decide to thaw themselves out and intrude back into my consciousness on this day.

This Sunday is the day that I count the hours until midnight hits, and then thank the Lord when the clock reads:  12:01.  And no, I will not go to church.  Not because I don’t worship the Lord, no, that is way off—I will pray at home, but I know the predictable subject of the pastor’s sermon.

So, I will pray.  I will thank the Lord for the blessing of life, and my breath and my work, and the many gifts he has given me to help others when I can, and also to ask him to guide and protect those who have chosen to stay with me over the years despite my failures. After all, he gave me a second chance on life 13 years ago and I am lucky and blessed to still be around.

As far as my good friend Ollie, he is difficult to find, and as I mentioned before, he will let himself be found when he chooses and only by select individuals.  I am proud to say I am one of them. But I could find him if I wanted, I think, but usually with clues he sends.  You see, I have learned to feel his soul a little, and to concentrate, and then I know.  That is what he taught me.  I still know very little about him, but in some ways, it doesn’t matter to me much, because I know he will hand some of his story over to me when he is ready, and who knows how long he will be on this earth. And if he doesn’t, then, I will tell his story as I know it or perceive it, and that story will never end.

My guess is that Ollie will not be in church Sunday either.  I know he has suffered some tragedies in his long life, many more than I have, and I do not know if he is or was a father or not.  I will never ask.  So, I will respect him and his privacy and leave him alone, for a while at least, and then, he hopefully, he will re-surface. probably when I least expect it.

I believe Ollie will be drinking a cold Guinness Sunday on a beach somewhere, thinking of how he loved to slip the surly bonds of Earth (From HIgh Flight, by John Gillespie Magee) in his Beech Bonanza, but it doesn’t matter, because life is a gift and so is the Guinness or two I am drinking tonight in his honor, and to our connection here on this stunningly beautiful, but brutal planet.

Thankfully, the young buck with a full rack of antlers sleeping under my deck doesn’t care about my beer and loud music. He feels safe it seems especially when I play country music, or maybe it’s not that at all, and he simply found himself a human friend.

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