Let me tell you all about my friend Luke.

That’s not his real name. To be honest, I have no idea what his real name is. It’s his furry name. The name of his fursona. He’s Luke like I am Fruvous.

For the record, I’m a fox and he’s a porcupine. Not that it matters.

He and I met on Tapestries MUCK two or three months ago, at a gay bar there subtly and creatively named Sodom.

Get it? Like the one in the Bible!

And we hit it off immediately. I wish like hell that I could recall the actual conversation, but the skinny of it was that he not only jumped in on a joke I was riffing, he did so with such intelligence, wit, insight, and knowledge that to me, it was like he had stepped out of the shadows and lit up like an angel afire with the faith.

And we went back and forth like that for a half a dozen more exchanges. and my enchantment with this amazing fellow only grew.

I wish I had the words to convey how much this meant to me. Suffice it to say that, looking back, I now know what the perfect way to get my romantic attention and hold it and deepen it is, and it’s what Luke did that night.

It;s ironic how hard it is to say how important verbal things like that mean to me in words. I guess you are either that kind of wordy person or not.

Anyhow, after that, I was always super excited to see him on, and I hope he felt the same. I loved talking with him and hanging out together and finding out more about him and his life.

Turns out he, in mundane reality, he’s an elderly gentleman who worked for the federal government and who comes from a large and well developed redneck tribe full of manly types who root hogs, drag stumps, build cars, and do all kind of other impossibly butch things I could never even dream of doing.

This also made him more attractive to me. I am drawn to that kind of hands-on competence because it is so unlike my own odd assemblage of talents. I stand in awe of people who can tackle life’s practical problems so easily and so well.

I mean, the man used to participate in demolition derbies.

That’s so goddamned butch that it makes me feel like a silly little girl by comparison.

Not that that is a bad thing. It can be, in fact, quite nice. And it showed me what I brought to the relationship : the feminine.

He was just a gruff tough and ready old porcupine who needed a sweet and silly little foxy to be his counterpart.

I was all too happy to comply.

And we would exchange links to music we like. That’s how I learned about songs I now love like this one :

And this one :

And this one :

And many more. All wonderful music, and all stuff that I would never have come across in a million years without him because they are so outside my usual sphere.

And people who know me know how much music means to me. So the fact that he could introduce me to stuff so wonderful and so different was wonderful too.

I wish I could say he liked my music as much as I liked his, but nope. His tastes are a lot more specific and narrow than mine.

I had better success with funny videos.

So over these few months, I have grown very fond of this amazing man. I won’t say we had a relationship, because that word comes with more baggage than an arctic expedition and besides, we’re both too old and tired for that crap.

But we got along real well. And enjoyed one another’s company, which like my daddy said is the most important thing.

Now I told you all that so I could tell you this : quite recently, he told me that he is dying.

I knew he wasn’t well because he had been forced to retire from his federal job because he just could not do the work any more. So it wasn’t a total surprise.

But somewhat foolishly, I thought that just put him and I on the same level. He was too sick to work and so am I.

But then he kept ending up in the hospital, and I worried about him a lot. But still, the thought of death was not on my mind.

Maybe I am capable of self-delusion after all.

But then he went to see a specialist, and when he came back, he told me, as he put it, that “he’d probably seen his last snow”.

And I didn’t know how to handle that, I have never known anyone who was dying before. I have no frame of reference for it. It lies completely outside my sphere of experience and understand.

It was, to put it mildly, one hell of a moment.

But it made me all the more determined to be as delightful and funny and cute for him as I could. And in my mind, I imagined that I had until fall or thereabouts.

But no. While we were talking this morning, he got a call from the hospital telling him he had to come in right away, as in NOW.

And you know it’s bad when the hospital calls YOU and not the other way around.

So as far as I know, he could already be dead. And if he is, there is nobody to tell me. I am quite sure his family has no idea I even exist.

I can’t imagine how he would explain being a furry to them, let alone a gay one.

And other than that, there is nobody to tell me. I might have heard my last from him and there is no way for me to know for sure.

So right now, all I can do is hope to hear from him again.

And that’s why I needed to tell you all of this.

Because I have never felt this helpless before in my life.

And I don’t know what to do.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.