A Farewell To Kings

Growing up in the mid-80’s as a decently educated white male in America, it is not too surprising that Rush would have come across my radar screen to some extent. For a while, at least, I was the self-proclaimed “biggest fan” in Amarillo, listening endlessly to Moving Pictures, Hemispheres, Permanent Waves, and 2112, Anthology, and Exit, Stage Left  down in my basement room on my dad’s old record player that he had left many years before. Geddy, Alex, and Neil were my solace. Like the narrator of 2112, I had found this strange, new thing that gave music, and for a Time, that discovery, which would define a great deal of my teenage musical inclinations, was Rush.

Perhaps the most important to me, however, was A Farewell To Kings. And, for all intents and purposes, it still is. Yet, it is with bittersweet fondness and regret that I listen to the title track. It is a memory of losing my greatest childhood friend. By losing, I don’t mean that she died, but that we lost track of each other during a transitional phase in each of our lives, and unfortunately, the thread was never regained, despite my attempted efforts to do so.

Teresita and I never lived in the same city or town, never dated, never even kissed, but there was a deep love and respect for each other’s plight in the sea of teenage angst. We wrote hundreds of letters over the years, having met at a swim meet in Odessa when I was 13, and she 15. For about a decade, we shared every triumph and every defeat in our lives, each dream and hope, whether fantasies in life to be unrequited, or sincere desires or expectations to be fulfilled.

Our common joke was that should life got too tough and “the dragons grow too mighty, to slay with pen or sword,” we would go start a pineapple farm on some deserted tropical island. Life did get pretty tough for me at times, and I often thought about that pineapple farm and whether Teresita had found her respite in the turmoil that our lives can throw at us. I know that she had some very difficult times, and for many of them, I was her only ear willing to listen, if only per letters, or by phone when possible. This, of course, was pre-cell phone and regular email contact, and a phone call used to take concerted planning and was a thing of expectation, rather than mere commonplace. It was the means to a deep, caring conversation that we held for those many formative years.

I am saddened at writing this, in all honesty, for of all my life, I believe that over the years, in spite of hardships and difficult times, I have been able to recover or at least make the attempt to redeem lost friendships of those whom I had valued so dearly, except for Teresita, a dear and respected friend.

Thinking of “Kings,” it was not unexpected to me that the memory of her came to my mind, and this song.

Given this, I can say that this is one of my one regrets in life, that I let this friendship slip away...and, throwing it out to the cosmos, I have learned the hard way not to take such precious gifts of friendship for granted.

For a good friend, I wish you the best.