Rich used to play guitar. When we first met, he promised to learn the song “House at Pooh Corner” (Kenny Loggins) and sing it to me. I have always been a huge Winnie The Pooh fan. Over the years I would tease him that he still had to learn it and sing it to me. When he got sick and talked about dying, I would tease him and say, “Hey, you cannot ‘up and croak’ because you still have not learned ‘House at Pooh Corner’ for me.” He sort-of laughed.
About a month ago, while I was driving, “House at Pooh Corner” came on the radio. I lost it. I started sobbing and couldn’t stop. I drove to Sam’s house. Sam has been one of my dearest friends for over 20 years … a “Level 5” (see Chapter 2 about intimacy levels in my book “Therapy in a Nutshell”). Sam wasn’t home so I drove to another dear friend’s house, Linda. I walked into her kitchen, fell into her arms and sobbed. Without a word, Linda laid me on her couch and covered me with a blanket. She sat next to me stroking my hair as I cried. In the mean time, Sam heard my emotional message on her answering machine and was frantically looking for me. Linda answered my cell phone and said, “I’ve got her.” Sam said, “I’m on my way.” These two women, two of my best girlfriends, sat with me for about three hours. They didn’t give me platitudes or try to cheer me up. They just sat there and said, “We are here. You are safe.”
TURN ON SOUND AND CLICK ON THIS LINK: House at Pooh Corner (Kenny Loggins)