Oh me oh my.

I opened an email this evening to the chorus of Alphaville's "Forever Young". Guess from whom it was.

I spent quite a bit of time at a particular friend's place in February of 2000. Dave was a mutual friend of Chris's and mine and, sensitive to what I was going through, there wasn't much conversation. I don't know if it were planned or not but at some stage, Dave put a cd into his mountainous stereo and the first song to wash over the room was a song by The Hollies: He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother.

The floodgates were opened and I wept freely.

Now here's part of the email to which I referred above:

Ratface!
My God it's been years. How ya been? I've been ok, there has been a lifetime of events in the past year, both exciting and tragic. on the 27th of July 2005, my brother Tim was killed in a trailbike accident, the family has been pretty upset for the past week and a half, the hardest thing was singing "He Ain't Heavy" at his funeral and then carrying his coffin to the hearse, and I know that song holds a deep meaning to you as well. Now it also holds great meaning to me.

I told you Matt was special. I told you all the kids I've known over the last 16 years or so are special. I'm so looking forward to bridging 4 years worth of absence. We have so much to talk about but as you can probably see, picking up the threads from where they were left should be as easy as falling off a barstool.