On my way home from New York and very literally mid-circumnavigation of Du Pont Circle in D.C., my phone rang. I looked down and saw the name and spontaneously uttered, "Oh fuck," quietly but firmly. These days there would be only one reason for him to call. I swiped my fingers over the flashing screen and answered as though I had no idea who was calling. He opened by saying, "You know why I'm calling." I acknowledged this. He gave me the signficant dates and times. I told him I would be there. He said they'd understand if I couldn't. I told him that people who were "raised right" showed up for these things. During my college years, I was in Key West on New Year's Eve when I got the call that his dad had been killed that evening, maimed to death by their dairy herd bull. I drove home the next day and was there, along with my parents, when it was important to be there. A few short years later, when my dad died of complications from too many cigarettes for too many years, my friend and his mom showed up when it was important for them to be there. A few years later, they were there again, this time, after my mom died. His mom passed away on Saturday. She was the last of our parents, who were dear friends of one another since our childhood. We too have been friends since childhood, our youthful time together spent riding horses, drivng tractors, feeding calves and watching movies from the floor of their big farmhouse. So I will turn around this evening and drive 12 hours in yet another direction and will be at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church for her funeral. Someday I too will be there, at some church, waiting for people who were "raised right" to show up.