don lacoss i remember you

ann arbor grad school days. my poor mind can't trade in stories, only impressions are left, wherever it is in the brain that memory lays its seeds. and don was the kind of guy who left an impression. so strange to summon it up now after so long. seeing his picture here in this digital space - a greying beard has been added. a child has been added. susan.

the memory of him arises to the surface again:  his voice with its veritable drawl of cool. big all the way around, big glasses, big humor, big mind. paris.

i'm still here in ann arbor. i go by don's old apartment all the time, now across from the YMCA and think always vaguely "don lived there" and remember hanging out in his funky one-bedroom space filled with books and art, so close to the kiwanis sale and,  was not Don LaCoss a very hip dude and don't i feel hipper for knowing him? i was always loving his brand of spikey conversation and sparring, funny & smart in a harper's type of way.

and never quite keeping in touch either, so that now there's this large gap between knowing Don in grad school, and knowing Susan too in grad school and all the life (and children!) that has happened between then and now, when Don's part of the story has abruptly ended and there will be no catching up that we we will ever  do. how strange.

yet how i am still able to send another heartfelt toast for you, Don, with fondness, from your ann arbor lifetime and a toast to you my dear Susan, from that same era but also from now, in this moment. thank you for including me in the weaving you are doing, of stories and celebrations, of all the lifetimes of our man. There's a lot of love here in these words. a big life and a well done one at that.

peace, Kath