Kevin John Kendall

"Kevin J. Kendall, Appleton, age 23, died early Saturday morning, November 6, 2004, as a result of an automobile accident in northern Langlade County."

When I first read Kevin's obit, I stopped at the word "died." I spent forever at that word. I still have a hard time letting that verb follow Kevin's name.

I won't write much about this because I - like many others - am unsure what to say and what not to say. For his full obituary, visit my friend Paul's blog at www.marcoe.net.

One more thing - the last time I heard from Kevin was when he sent me the Anne Lamott book, Traveling Mercies, about three weeks ago. When I heard from Allison that he had died, a story Anne told about the death of her friend, Pammy, came immediately to mind:

"I tossed a handful of Pammy's ashes into the water way out past the Golden Gate bridge during the day, with her husband and family, when I had been sober several years. And this time I was able to see, because it was daytime and I was sober, the deeply contradictory nature of ashes - that they are both so heavy and so light. They stick to things, to your fingers, your sweater ... We tried to strew them off the side of the boat romantically, with seals barking from the rocks on shore, under a true-blue sky, but they would not cooperate. They rarely will. It's frustrating if you are hoping to have a happy ending, or at least a little closure, a movie moment when you toss them into the air and they flutter and disperse. They don't. They cling, they haunt. They get in your hair, in your eyes, in your clothes ....

"More than anything else on earth, I do not want [my son] Sam to ever blow away, but you know what? He will. His ashes will stick to the fingers of someone who loves him. Maybe his ashes will blow that person into a place where things do not come out right, where things cannot be boxed up or spackled back together but where somehow he or she can see, with whatever joy can be mustered, the four or five leaves on the formerly barren tree."

Thank you, Kevin, for letting your ashes stick to me. I love you.