You don't mess around with Jim

I have a good friend, Jim. He's a neighbor, but I've known him for some 30 odd years. I was 15 when we met, so that made him 53, which is a young man by any standard. He's an old man now.

My parents bought paintings from him years ago and I've mentioned him in earlier blog posts. He's a locally known wildlife artist, and at the time they set me up to take lessons from him. I have some art talent, not a lot, but I think they were looking for ways for me to find myself. That wasn't possible because I was too far astray, but I did find a friend.

 I didn't take lessons from him for very long, but over the years we saw each other thither and yon and spoke warmly, because there was surely a common bond between us. But Jim has that way about him, to make you feel like you're the best friend. I've come to understand that he's made many people feel like I do about him.

Years later he moved from his house in the country to here in town, and years after that I rented a home on the same street, and eventually bought a house a few doors down from him. We became friendlier, but in the last year we've become pretty close, and I see him every other day or so. Jim has heart failure now and hospice was called in. He's doing pretty well considering the diagnosis, I think, but he has his good days and his bad. He's still a character, a hand-full, a dear man and sweet.  He's not perfect and he can be a pill, but he's very cool. And he's so funny.

This morning I was checking on him and I posted this on my facebook after I returned: 

"Visiting with Jim this morning and he told me that he's taking his sister down to the woods by our houses to show her where he wants his ashes scattered. He said, "Ill show you, too. That way Daisy can come down and pee on me." I was like, "Jim, we both know she'll roll in you." That's real friendship ~ gallows humor. 

I'm grateful to my parents introducing me to Jim all those years ago, and I'm very grateful to our friend Anne for asking me to walk with Jim and Fred everyday last winter when she went on vacation in December. I just want to remember that and put it out there in the ether.