Another friend has passed from this life.  Though I did not know him well enough to spend an evening with him in social company, Robert McCain twinkled his gorgeous smile in my direction whenever we met.  My stylist, he first cut the Corley curls quite a few years ago at his salon  in Westport.  I stumbled upon him, quite literally, in a Living Social ad and few people have charmed me as quickly.

Robert’s face appeared everywhere after I first met him, on the sidewalks of Westport and around town.  I found his laughter infectious, his enthusiasm contagious, and his zest for everything he did admirable.  But then his life took a dastardly turn, and he disappeared for a bit, recovering from events that would trouble him for the rest of his days.

He re-surfaced at the Lady Luck Salon next door to my office and I cheerfully sat in his chair again, becoming blonde under his deft ministrations.  While there, I learned of his commitment to finding serenity, his devotion to his parents, and his undying affection for the friends who graced his life.  I went to a seminar that directed us to find something at which we succeed, and do it for thirty minutes every day.  My something is being happy, he told me.

Robert’s passing caused pain to a huge swathe of people in Kansas City and across the nation.  I cannot imagine that anyone who knew Robert will ever forget him.  There’s a heck of a party in heaven this St. Patrick’s Day, as Robert takes the stage.  Watch for showers of sparkles and shamrocks from the skies.

It’s the seventeenth day of the twenty-seventh month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues, though here on earth, the lights have dimmed.

Death, be not proud
BY JOHN DONNE
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.