There’s a song I’d like to share with you. I recognize that last sentence makes me sound like a lovesick teenage boy, but it’s true. There’s a song I’d like to share with you, and here’s why. The holidays are a time of embracing loved ones-family, friends and community. For those of us that love someone that died, the holidays can be a bewildering time. We fully participate in the cheer of the season, but there is an element of sadness. There’s just something missing a lot of the time.

The song is “Company of Friends” by Danny Schmidt and performed by Schmidt and Carry Elkin. For me, this song illuminates a way that I can honor my father, while also acknowledging that he has passed. I commemorate that I am in his eternal company of friends, and I hold the flame of his embers. I also take time to appreciate friends and family that are right here in the now, and to acknowledge how richly those unique individuals texture my world.

COMPANY OF FRIENDS

When I die, let them judge me by my company of friends

Let them know me as the footprints that I left upon the sand

Let them laugh for all the laughter

Let them cry for laughter’s end

But when I die, let them judge me by my company of friends

When I die, let them toast to all the things that I believe

Let them raise a glass to consciousness

And not spill a drop for grief

Let the bubbles rise at midnight

Let their tongues get light as thieves

And when I die, let them toast to all the things that I believe

I believe in restless hunger

I believe in red balloons

I believe in private thunder

In the end I do believe

I believe in inspiration

I believe in lightning bugs

I believe in slow creation

In the end I do believe

I believe in ink on paper

I believe in lips on ears

I believe what’s shared is savored

In the end I do believe

I believe in work on Sundays

I believe in raising barns

I believe in wasting Mondays

In the end I do believe

I believe in intuition

I believe in being wrong

I believe in contradiction

In the end I do believe

I believe in living smitten

I believe all hearts will mend

I believe our book is written

By our company of friends

Copyright 2007. Words and music by Danny Schmidt.

Best of the season to you and yours, Kaci