Dear Lynn,
It’s weird. Weird knowing that you won’t be reading this today. You always read my stuff. It’s how we met. Which only raises questions about your taste in literature.
Directly after you’d read my stuff, you’d email me. You did this nearly every day. For many years.
Your emails were updates on your life. You told me about places you visited. Foods you ate. Ideas you had. About the thousands of medical appointments you endured. About the throngs of doctors in your life. About your hospital stays.
Those emails became part of my daily routine. Jamie and I both read them. Daily. We’d get a little worried whenever we didn’t hear from you for a few days.
The first time you and I actually hung out, we went to see George “Goober” Lindsey’s grave. You, me, and Jamie. It was a big roadtrip. Jamie drove the van. You sat in the passenger seat, navigating. I was in the back seat, providing the helpful service of eating Chili Cheese Fritos.
The next time we hung out, we went to the ACTUAL Mayberry. We visited Mount Airy, North Carolina, for an Andy Griffith Rerun Watcher’s Club reunion. We spent the weekend together, watching reruns, at the Mayberry Motor Inn, along with hundreds of fellow Andy fans from around the US, who are all—and I mean this with all sincerity—clinically insane.
One time, you went to Waffle House with Jamie. The waitress thought Jamie was your date. You blushed like a schoolkid. You invited us to Thanksgiving. You were always checking up on us.
You came to many of my shows. You heard my jokes over and again. I don’t know how you weren’t sick of me. I’m sick of me.
You sat front and center the first time I played the Grand Ole Opry. I took the stage, and I could see you in the audience. You had just gotten out of the hospital. I remember you were walking with a cane. But you were there. And when we hugged after the show you whispered in my ear, “You done good, Ope.”
After you came out of your coma last month, several people said they were getting up a caroling troop to surprise you. The troop was a full band, with singers, guitars, banjos, and one accordion. We showed up on your lawn. There must have been fifteen or twenty of us. And we caroled hard.
They wheeled your wheelchair outside into the icy cold. And there we were. Caroling our butts off. And this wasn’t easy inasmuch as none of us knew the lyrics to any actual carols, and none of us were singing, technically, at the same time.
And then you invited us inside for hot cocoa and cookies. Within seconds, your house was alight with all us wackos, running around your halls, laughing, and hanging out, intoxicated purely on refined white sugar and fun.
Before we left, you and I embraced. And you said to me, “Man, I think this is what heaven will feel like.”
Someone laughed and told you that they thought you needed to raise your expectations regarding heaven.
And yesterday, you finally did.