Reverend Ruth is my friend, fellow dog walker, and hospice counselor. She’s been watching people exit this beautiful place for more than 50 years. Ruth says that this year is one of exiting. Hospice is backed up, the obituary section of the paper is thick and every week I’ve attended a funeral or sent a condolences card. I want it to stop. It is all so sad.

Last week it was my best friend’s mother, who I considered my second mom. I wasn’t sad to see her go because she had been in so much pain. She was begging to die. But the family wanted to wait, just in case. I wanted to put a pillow over her head. It broke my heart to sit beside her bed day after day, watching her suffer. And I couldn’t help but notice that she was finally losing weight. A feeding tube will do that to you. As the nurse, said it’s very restrictive. She became so small I wasn’t even sure it was her in the bed. I loved June. She knew me as well as my own mother. I wished I’d had a child so she could have been a grandmother.

My Dad and now June. And with a new name to write under, I feel free to say whatever I want.

After the memorial service; an old flame, hook-up, boyfriend, date, whatever, wanted to share a few drinks. We had to wait an hour for the bar to open. He really wanted a drink.

I hadn’t seen him for seven years, but he was still as charming as ever. With six sisters, this man knows everything about women.

I’d dated him for around seven months, and then his “wife” popped up at a company party. Funny because he’d signed the divorce papers on the golf course, and had his divorce party at the local Mexican restaurant . The kind of place where it’s safer to stick with the drinks than risk food poisoning.

I’d forgotten how hurt I’d been when I learned he was married. And after a few glasses of wine, a steak dinner ( I ate the salad part), lots of laughs, and a teenage thrill ride up the hill to my house, we of course were in bed together. It was comfortable. He wanted to check out my new boobs. I wanted to feel loved, and safe and alive.

Then he told me he had had a small heart attack. Not a big deal he was on the golf course (not sure he ever really worked), and happened to be playing golf with two paramedics. The charmer has lived a charmed life.

As we waited for his dick to get hard, we talked about old times. How after his DUI he would have to blow to start his car. And how coming back from Tahoe he walked five miles in the snow, in tennis shoes, hoping to sober up after running into a snow plow. We laughed about all the fun we had dancing all night, having sex in the hot tub, in the car, on the porch, and on the bar after everyone had gone home. The trip to Las Vegas, the wedding we crashed, the halloween party when he left me alone to go to one that was more fun. As in had more coke.

It was getting late. And his dick was still limp. We talked about how much I loved my dad and how he lost his at 58 from a heart attack. But that would never happen to him; his dad was an alcoholic.

The Charmer had an early tee off time. He sweetly kissed me softly, blew out the candles, took the wine glasses down stairs, and locked the door. He quietly started the car, to carefully drive 20 miles to his own house right down the street from his family.  “You know baby we are separated now. I had the separation party at the Mexican restaurant. Sorry you couldn’t come, it was a blast.”

He’s a charmer and a liar. His wife is a saint. His kids somehow are growing up fine. I’ve learned since that he’s had three heart attacks. I doubt his dick will ever work again. And I don’t think he will make 58.

I’ll learn much more about who the Charmer is at his funeral than I did in all the hours we spent in bed.

It’s a year of exits, please don’t make it yours my sweet Charmer.