Our One Lunch

Bees skeltered yellow

Sun’s lunch. salad days, talking

Metal chairs scraping

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I was walking with dogs at Curry Park when I fished my phone out of my pocket and saw that Peter Hoeffel had passed away this morning. Such sad news. He found a bike for me last summer, a beautiful bike just right for my aging self. Then we had lunch at Hooligan’s, outside, with bees pestering us the whole time. We’d known each other a long time – start of the Mental Health Task Force – but we’d never had lunch or a conversation that wasn’t about business. At lunch, we talked about college and music and kids and jobs. Bikes. People we loved and people who’d done us wrong. His cancer. How he was absolutely convinced that he would beat it. His resolve, maybe fearlessness is a better word, not arrogance, just complete belief – well, it was so utterly convincing, positive and inspiring. We hugged and went our separate ways and I thought – how lucky to have had this chance to make a friend out of a colleague. There’s a lesson there, I guess. Don’t wait.

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Photo by Kai Wenzel on Unsplash