Eulogy to a Friend

Eulogy to a Friend

How absurd this thing called life!

Why do the good die young?

The gifted, the talented, why are they singled out?

They enrich our lives, we the dull and ignorant who live on.

The artists of this life are so fragile;

They are beset upon from all sides.

They are taken advantage of, lied to, cheated, mocked,

but above all…loved.

Andrew is not dead. He disallowed it.

Those of us, who were fortunate to hear his music, will

recall his essence through the rest of our days.

His soul still lives in his paintings.

And who among us will ever forget his humour; his

ability to laugh at himself and to make us laugh at

ourselves.

In these ways he is like the Phoenix.

He has left so much of himself and yet there was so much

for him still to do.

He has the last laugh, as he did always.

He is now at peace, while the rest of us must try to

make some sense of our pointless existences.

He has left a vacuum in our lives, which cannot be

replaced.

Let us try, however, to be closer to each other as he

would have wished.

Let our comradeship be the way to rid ourselves of our grief.

Think of him with joy; may his guitar play forever in

our heads.

There is no beginning, there is no end.

Sleep Andrew, sleep………………………………………..

© James Craib, October, 1975.