Gunshots...

right outside in the neighborhood. What?? Then about a minute later, a lone bugle blowing Taps.

Ah yes. Living down from a funeral home...

Sometimes I read an obit, see they're coming later in the week for the services. The young ones tend to have a packed parking lot. The bikers' funerals seem to involve a proud procession in the summertime. You see a lot of people stepping outside for smokes, sometimes they gather around their cars taking a time out from what's going on inside. Once I heard loud music playing from a car in the back of the parking lot, and thought: how rude! But turns out it was a bunch of young kids; I think they were grieving one of their own in the best way they knew. Sorry, can't tell you the song.

Ruth, who passed at 90, used to tell me it was hard aging, losing so many friends. She didn't expect there would be too many still around for her, but the church, where she was waked in the back, was pretty full. Her children's friends, some of hers that were still around, and all those she befriended in the community who were younger or newcomers or otherwise found a friend in this wise old woman... She was loved.

Here's the words to Taps, for that soldier saying goodbye down the street. RIP:

Day is done,
Gone the sun,
From the lakes,
From the hills,
From the sky,
All is well,
Safely rest,
God is nigh.

Fading light,
Dims the sight,
And a star,
Gems the sky,
Gleaming bright,
From afar,
Drawing nigh,
Falls the night.

Thanks and praise,
For our days,
Neath the sun,
Neath the stars,
Neath the sky,
As we go,
This we know,
God is nigh.