It is a cliche` to say "Weddings when one is young, and funerals when one is old".
Such truisms bite harder as you live through them. One of my oldest friends died this year, after his wife Nancy died the year before. I met Rick Brown as a sophomore in college. I was probably 20 years of age, or perhaps 21. I remember years later, writing a letter of recommendation for Rick, that was (I believe) part of the process for him to be certified as a class C contractor, wherein I said (as best I remember the wording), "I trust Rick Brown with my life; why wouldn't I also recommend him heartily for whatever position he feels qualified to step up for?".
I stood up as best man at Rick and Nancy's wedding, and he had before that signed witness on our marriage license, when Sue and I eloped without a wedding. In those days I played guitar and wrote songs--I memorialized his adolescent motocross days, with a song entitled "Scramble Track Rider", whose only public performance was at Rick and Nancy's wedding reception.
I recall Rick saying that a class C contractor in Colorado could legally take a contract to build a nuclear plant. Rick was justly proud of this attainment. We drifted apart, as life would happen, though my wife Sue stayed BFF's with Nancy, his wife. Sue and I had kids. Rick had taken the position in our early college days, that it was cruel to bring kids into such a world as ours. I guess this was heartfelt because Rick and Nancy remained childless, apparently by choice. However Nancy so doted on her sisters' children, I could not help but feel that deep down she may well have wanted children of her own.
Life did not seem to go well for Rick and Nancy. He struggled as a contractor, and it was whispered that Rick may have become alcoholic. They moved from owning a small house on Foote Street here in Colorado Springs, to renting in a mobile home park. Nancy was always upbeat, always working office jobs, receptionist and the like. She was planning to be "a member of the wedding" at her eldest niece's marriage in the spring of 2020.
Before that, Nancy went into hospital. During recommended bypass surgery, Nancy died, at 67 years of age on 19-November 2019. To our sorrow, there was no funeral, no ceremony of goodbye. Rick had Nancy's remains cremated, and insisted that he alone would scatter her ashes, somewhere near Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, a favorite place of theirs in younger days.
Then, possibly on the anniversary of Nancy's death, Rick took his own life. He was found on 23-November 2020, having been deceased for a short time. Rick's estranged family planned a private ceremony, at Great Sand Dunes National Park.
In his eighties my father-in-law warned me that if you live long enough, everyone you knew back in the day has died, and you are left alone. Rick and Nancy are, for Sue and I, the first friends old and dear, to go that path.
"As life runs on, the road grows strange with
Faces new - and near the end.
The milestones into headstones change,
Neath every one a friend."