A friendly memory

Being Frank

By Frank Phillips

I’ve been thinking a lot about my good friend Darrell Lutz who died of cancer just before we moved back to Indiana from Kentucky.

I moved to Kentucky about a month before the kids got out of school in Indiana.

The weather was warm and I had the windows open.

Darrell lived in a house on the hill behind the house I was in.

I did pretty well during the day, staying busy at work, but evenings were lonely.

One evening, about an hour before sundown, it got to me. I missed my family and I just started bawling, really loudly.

Then I realized the windows were open.

I looked out the kitchen window and there was Darrell, about 50 yards away, looking at our house.

The next night I decided to stay busy, so I went for a walk and ran into Darrell out back, about the same place he was when I saw him when he was listening to me cry.

We visited for a while and then I turned to go home.

“Where are you going,” he asked. “Don’t be in a hurry.”

Darrell made sure I never spent another lonely evening alone, homesick for my family. I never went home again until it was time for bed.

In a few weeks Linda and the kids joined me and Darrell was a good family friend until he died.

I made up by my mind none of my friends would ever suffer from loneliness if I could help it.

Darrell was a good man and a good friend.