Good bye and thank you to an old friend

Life is busy for everyone. I have met so many people, made so many friends, all having made time to impart something of themselves to me, and then carrying on with their own busy lives. I do not stay in touch, really, with many of them and I'm not sure I like what that says about me, but there it is.

This week, at only 56 years old, Wayne Penney died of kidney cancer. I didn't know he was sick, though I hear it was a brief period for him of having a normal life to being diagnosed with life's ultimate evil. I feel for his family, his daughters, his wife - this is not something anyone can ever be prepared for.

I grew up with the Penney family in Woodstock, Ontario in the 1970's, went to school with Wayne, his younger sister, Mary, and younger brother, Ken. Mary and I spent hours playing barbies on my front stoop, doing handstands in her backyard, picking elderberries off branches our mothers' picked, eating the pickles they made, riding our bikes all over town, watching movies (yes, Penney family, I still cry when I watch Spartacus), working in various harvest jobs, playing cards. I remember Wayne listening to Pink Floyd with the headphones on, fairly jumping off the sofa when he listened to "Careful with that axe, Eugene". He loved music and I think he liked a good scare.

It was Wayne who taught me to play euchre one summer while working in a corn hybrid station outside Woodstock. He also dropped an f-bomb on an irritating teenage me between the rows of bagged corn tassels. That was a humbling experience - I was a bit of an annoying geezer, being an only child at my house and a know-it-all to boot. Ah, can't young girls be awful? I am a pretty great euchre player though.

It was Wayne who was my chaperone to a party my mother had reservations about allowing me to attend. I don't remember anything of the party except going there and feeling bad for him for having to commit to being my chaperone. He didn't complain, he didn't say anything at all.

And it was Wayne who took me to the Blue on Blue, a formal dance for seniors at the local high school, because we both wanted to go and neither of us had dates. He didn't have to take me and I was grateful that he did.

Though I had the chance, I don't think I ever thanked him for his friendship and caring. I'm quite certain, too, that he carried these qualities of genuine interest and quiet thoughtfulness throughout his life and can only imagine how all who were close to him benefited from his love.

I'm sure for his family his absence is palpable. I haven't seen him since 1986 and feel this loss. My husband shook his head and asked me why, if I haven't seen him for 30 years, would I feel this way. I guess the answer is that Wayne is a part of who I became, part of my foundation, like the brick laid for our home. Always there but never seen, because the foundation has been hidden with life's back-fill.

Thanks for everything Wayner. I feel lucky to have had my adventures of youth with you and I will think of you every time I shuffle a euchre deck.