OK, I just wanna go on a rant completely unrelated to anything else. Things have been a little heavy on the blog here lately, so I'm going to skirt another edge for a moment and talk about one of life's mosquitos - an everyday issue that matters little but irritates just the same.

Who on earth invented scented underarm deodorant?

Personally, I want my armpits to do three things: not grow hair, not sweat and not smell. Not smell AT ALL. Armpits should be perfectly neutral on the whole smell thing. That's why I buy perfume and body spray. Fragrance should come from my pulse points, not my pits. What marketing whiz decided scented deodorant was a fine fricking idea? By its very name, deodorant should not have any smell!

Another thing about this stuff: Why is it so hard for them to make deodorant that doesn't leave white marks on your clothes? Some companies have done it; why can't they all?? Do the stain remover folks pay select companies NOT to make their deodorants invisible? What kind of crazy scheme is going on here exactly? Certainly, perfume manufacturers were not invited to the party.

I am somewhat happy with this product, Secret clear gel, because it is, as promised, clear. So far, it's left no white smudges on my black, navy or otherwise dark tops. But I had no choice about the smell. Either the Unscented was sold out, or Secret opted not to make such a ridiculous product. Who, after all, would want unscented deodorant when you could have what I now have: Vanilla Sparkle.

Now, my clothes are unmarked, but I smell like vanilla. Had I known how very strong Vanilla Sparkle was, I would not have purchased it. But my other options seemed no less desirable. I could have been Tropical Sparkle or Berry Sparkle. Vanilla seemed safe, neutral, even blah. It's vanilla, for God's sake. But not this stuff - it's overwhelmingly sweet and strong. Would that my perfumes lasted as long as Vanilla Sparkle Clear Gel Secret.

There's even a graphic of an ice cream cone on it. Does a 42-year-old woman really want to smell like an ice cream cone? Or a berry? Or a coconut? Does even a 16-year-old woman want this? The only women I can think of who want to smell like ice cream haven't yet developed sweat glands; they're racking up single digit birthdays and biting their tongues as they struggle to print their first names with soft-edged pencils.

Most of the time, I wear no fragrance at all, and on those days, that is my aim. I want to smell like nothing. I'd like to think I naturally emit a delightful fragrance of my own, but let's not kid ourselves. We're humans. Without deodorant, we stink. Even with deodorant, the odds of us smelling lovely are slim (let's not forget breath, feet and, well, other areas that are not naturally minty smelling).

So, how about a deodorant called Inoffensive Woman? When will we see that on the shelf? Or if that's not jazzy enough, Nature Girl. And please don't go adding any pine or earthy scents, thinking this will make DO even more attractive to the neutral-scent-seeking woman. Oh, and definitely don't go for patchouli.

No offense to anyone patchouli fans who may be reading this, but from my nose's point of view, only in the drug-crazed 60s and 70s could that "unique" odor have possibly been considered alluring. If you're in my vicinity and wearing it, please stand back a bit - but not so far that I can't reach the pipe you're extending in my direction.

Back to you manufacturing types: Follow the age-old KISS rule: Keep it simple, Stupid. Produce every underarm product with exactly the same basic, timeless name that I believe almost all of us scour the shelves for every time we're forced to buy deodorant: Unscented.

Brad's services have come and gone. I feel healed by it, but feel flashes of guilt in the wake of it all. Why is my grief not deeper? Why is it not lingering? When will it rear its ugly head again? And what if it never does? I know there is no right way to grieve, yet I feel my loss should be tearing me apart, as it is some of my friends.

Two friends flew into DIA and stayed here last Friday night. The three of us - two of whom had never met before - stayed up late, drinking wine, talking about Brad, sharing our disbelief that this had happened to one so beautiful and vital. It seemed to me the three of us felt immediately comfortable with one another. Our friendship with Brad, and our shared loss, bound us immediately.

Stephanie said she had letters he'd penned to her years ago saved at her home in California. She e-mailed last week to say she'd re-read them, and they reassured her that Brad did indeed have a good life.

Kimberly, however, had been visiting him three times a week before he died, leaning on him as she worked through domestic pain. Likewise with Shauna.

Brad had been propping up two of my friends, and I hadn't even known. Kimberly feels lost, still overwhelmed by her personal problems and without the rock Brad had become for her.

I worry about both of these women, delicate souls from the start, who are trying to move on with their lives. One dealing with the unknown and likely eternal "what ifs," along with the loss of support and friendship. The other whose loss is coupled with intense personal struggle.

I want to be there for them now. But I can't be from this distance. And I can never take Brad's place.

I worry, too, about Mark, the photographer who worked with him at the paper for years. Someone said last weekend that the Brad and Mark years were the paper's golden ones. I felt privileged that I had been there during those years.

But Mark suffered the loss of a girlfriend, the shocking and bizarre loss of his job, and a transfer that took him to Aspen. Aspen, he said, is not his home. Frisco, home of the Summit Daily and the cabin he still owns, is where his heart resides. Mark is quiet. His emotions stay, for the most part, underground. Brad, he said, was his brother. I wonder where his grief will go, how he will let it out, if it will stay inside and eat that gentle man to pieces.

As for me, I'm doing better than I'd have thought with it all. I was so shaky before the service I couldn't look at Brad's photos, more than a dozen of which were on display at the amphitheater in which his service was held. I tried to sign the guest book and only got as far as my name and address. The pen simply ceased to function when I tried to write in the comments section, where people had written messages to Brad.

Stephanie, Kimberly and I held onto one another during the service. We laughed as Shauna spoke, doing a perfect impression of Brad's monotone voice. We cried when she said that through all this confusion, all she wanted to do was talk to Brad about it. We cried still more when she made a personal vow to the blue sky above that she would be a better friend in the future, as he had always been. Tears rolled when Mark, normally so shy, gave a heart-rending speech and said, as he walked off stage, "I'll see you again someday, my brother."

Then somehow, after it was over, I felt calm and steady. And have felt mostly that way since.

In keeping with everyone's resolve to be better friends and stay in touch, I have reached out to some old Summit Daily friends this week. In the space of only a few days, I have seen five of them. A surprising amount of us live in the Denver metro area. Jeff, a mid-90s co-worker, and I met for a drink downtown Wednesday. Kristin, my former editor, invited me to her baby shower yesterday, where I saw three other old friends. Andy and I, after putting it off for weeks, finally will meet for that drink midway between our suburban homes.

I really hope we can all keep this up. It could be that Brad's death has the strange effect of re-igniting these old friendships that have been missing in my life (perhaps all our lives) so long and somehow assuaging the loneliness. It makes me feel guilty just writing that, however.

Somehow the most heartbreaking thing of all came Tuesday. Kimberly called to say she was in the Summit Daily parking lot at and about to go in for the first time without Brad.

"I don't think I can do this without crying. Can you talk me through it?" she asked, and she burst into gut-wrenching sobs.

My eyes, which had been tearless for days, welled. My chest ached as her pain sped across the satellite signal and wrapped itself around me. "You're breaking my heart," I told her.

I told her to cry, to run for Martha, who had been there for more than a dozen years and knew Brad almost as well as she did. These people, all of whom loved him, too, will understand, I said. She broke down, she told me later, and it was, she said, just fine.

So now, I move on, without as much sorrow as I think I should feel.

Certainly, it has residual, even strangely comical, effect.

When I arrived home last Sunday night, I tossed my packet of daily pills by the sink - my antidepressant, my mood stabilizer, my multi-vitamins, calcium and acne treatment. As well as my herbal sleeping pills, which I failed to notice were still mixed among them.

The next morning, I swallowed them all and got ready to make the 45-minute drive to my boss' home.

I stood to leave and felt overcome by dizziness. It was, I swore, a variety of dizziness I'd never felt before, extending from my head to my toes and leaving nothing between untouched. My brain did not want my limbs to move. My brain wanted only to lay my body down. I felt, or perhaps imagined, my left arm tingling.

I'm dying, I thought. I'm having a heart attack and I'm going to die here in my bedroom. I'm going where Brad has gone, only 10 days later. Why couldn't I have died at the same time, I thought. It would have been so much more convenient for everyone. How many of these people will return for my funeral; surely, only a handful. And who will find me? How long will I lay here?

Somehow, I convinced myself that rather than laying down, I should head for the office.

If I die on the highway and have an accident, I thought, at least I'll be found immediately. Hopefully, I won't take anyone else with me. Hopefully, I'll just drive off the edge and pass away at the steering wheel. Someone will stop. They'll grab my cell phone and begin notifying everyone.

But I did not die. Instead, I drove to work fighting the urge to nod off. Nausea set in. My head began to throb.

Slowly, I started to think I might not be dying after all.

My boss was concerned. She fed me crackers and hot tea. She asked if I needed to go home.

"No, no," I reassured her, feeling brave in the face of this potentially terrible illness. "I'll be OK."

An hour later, I felt dramatically improved. Only then did my brain recover enough to think back on my morning's dose, to remember it had seemed like an unusually tough swallow, to realize my Valerian pills had been nestled in among all the others.

I did not admit this to my boss.

I was not dying. But neither did I feel as Brad wrote that he did in a letter he penned to a friend several years ago. He was in a tent far from civilization in the middle of a frenetic lightning storm. If he were struck that night and died, he wrote, he would be content. He had lived a good life, seen many places, loved many people. Brad survived the lightning storm and lived many more good years. This letter, I think, comforts his family and friends deeply.

But I don't share Brad's sentiments. Only in the last few years do I think I've begun the process of giving to others, of becoming less selfish and feeling that I can make a difference.

I want to see my son through every fascinating phase of his life, to be the best influence I can be and continue to help form this amazing young person into the fine adult I already know he will be. He needs me, this child. Even if I felt ready to go, he is not ready to lose his mother.

There are a million places I want to see, and experiences I want to have. I want to share my life with a man, perhaps a man with children. Have I lived alone too long? Am I too spoiled by my own good child to take on someone else's? Perhaps. Yet nature beckons me toward that lifestyle; it's a yearning that begs to be satisfied. I want to be a better friend, a better sibling, a better daughter, a better mom. I want to take more chances. Damnit, I want to try that Indoor Skydiving thing down by the mall. What the heck is that anyway?

What it all boils down to is, I cannot write the words that Brad wrote in that tent. How many of us can?

Last eve, Robby and I were kicking a rock across a parking lot and I noticed it would have been a perfect skipping stone. Out of the blue, I remembered skipping rocks with Brad at a pond while we were en route to some story, and Brad trying to teach me the proper wrist flick. I never did get it.

The memory did not pain me, as I thought it should. It was only a thought of a pleasant sunny day with Brad, one of many nice times we'd shared. Those moments were never over-the-top - Brad was a man of moderation in all things - but never anything less than nice. They simply were.

And so, I guess, is that memory. It was not a knife to my heart, which - thank to the forces-that-be - continues to beat strongly. It was a gentle reminder of a dear and now-departed friend that, thankfully I believe, did not fill me with yearning, regret or angst about my own mortality.

It simply was.

Brad - Part I

Billy Joel said only the good die young. It makes for a good song but is far from true. It does, seem, however, that so many who die young are truly good.

So it is with my friend, Brad. Brad died at about 8:30 Sunday morning on an operating table at the Summit County hospital.

Brad was a 12-year photographer at the Summit Daily News. He started there a month before I did and we worked together for 9 years. We were friends from the start and still in regular contact with one another until the day he died. He was 42.

Brad had hosted a dinner party that evening, as he did so often and so well.

I had traveled to Summit County that day to douse my Denver loneliness with the company of old friends. "Come by," Brad said. "Shauna's here. She'd love to see you." But somehow, we crossed wires. Perhaps it was a phone call one of us thought the other had promised to make. I never made it there.

As usual, he had invited two of his guests, including Shauna, also a former SDN reporter, to spend the night in his four-bedroom home. Brad loved company but also did not want anyone who might be drunk to drive home after one of his parties. He promised he'd be right up the stairs after them, but instead opted to sit in the ground-level hot tub, three stories below his condo. At about midnight, he walked back up the stairs. Authorities believe it was the combination of alcohol, an extremely hot hot tub and the exertion of climbing three floors that made him dizzy. But somehow, standing at the landing outside his door, he somehow flipped over the thigh-high railing and fell to the grass three stories down.

He broke tree branches on the way down.

Shauna says she heard a thump about midnight. The kind of sound that gave her "a bad feeling." But her friend convinced her it was nothing, and so, she fell asleep again. Shauna, always a keenly sensitive woman, cannot forgive herself.

The authorities say he never regained full consciousness. While I'd like to believe this is true, I cannot. He tried to pull himself back up the three flights of stairs, but got no further than the second landing. Friends who went to the scene said there was blood and an indentation in the grass where he landed, more blood leading up the stairs.

A neighbor heard moaning outside his door. He ignored it for a while, believing someone was having sex outside. Finally, he called out and asked if everything was alright.

"Fell," Brad said.

"Where are you?"

"Staircase."

Two hours had passed by then.

Brad answered paramedics' questions, but apparently did not know his name.

At 2:30 a.m., he arrived at the hospital. He had sustained massive pelvic trauma and a head injury. He was too critical to fly to Denver.

Shauna, pacing the waiting room, said she looked in and thought, "Why are Brad's feet black?"

At 8:30 a.m., they pronounced him dead.

At 9:30, perplexed about our missed connection of the night before, I called Brad, hoping we could meet for coffee before I left town.

The voice that answered was unfamiliar.

"You're looking for Brad? Are you one of his friends?"

He stumbled as he went on. "This is Jim Morgan. I'm publisher of the Summit Daily News. I have Brad's phone because he was in an accident last night."

I felt the blood drain from my face. I waited for him to tell me what hospital he was in.

"He passed away." He was silent, waiting for me to say something, but I could not speak.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know how else to tell you."

Later, I would realize what a horrible job he had that day, but then I could only think, "You're a liar."

No one that young is supposed to die. But Brad, in particular, was not supposed to die. Brad was adventurous, an admirable athlete, a world traveler, a great cook with an appreciation for fine wine and good beer. He celebrated life. He drank. But he was never reckless.

No drunken Brad tales ever circulated Summit County. (I'm quite sure the same cannot be said of me.)

He was the very definition of mellow, speaking so slowly at times that the rest of us on staff made affectionate fun of him. We could all imitate one another with some success, but "the Brad" was distinctive, more easily done than some. He spoke slowly, in part, because he was so thoughtful, his words so carefully considered.

In a ski resort community populated by risk-takers and outdoor lovers, I can think of at least a dozen other friends whose premature deaths would have saddened, but not surprised me.

Not Brad. As one friend wrote in an e-mail today, "There was always going to be another time to see Brad."

You knew that because Brad always was and always would be a friend. His door would always swing wide for you.

But my friend Laura, with whom I was staying, called the coroner. We both knew her; this is a small county in which the locals - always outnumbered by the tourists who play there year-round - keep a tight circle. She confirmed that it was true. She - like everyone else - knew Brad.

"She was shaken," Laura said. "I've never heard her like that before."

The phone lines and cell signals began to burn. The calls crossed the county, the state, the country and oceans.

I called my former editor Alex, thinking he must already know. He did not. Alex called Mark, who for years had worked with Brad as co-SDN photographers and considered Brad his brother. Mark had just told Gay and John. Alex called the editor. I called Abby in Aspen, who had just heard from Mark and said she was driving over. But first, she would go to the Aspen Times office to tell Dan, who jumped in his car as well. I called Andy in Denver, who jumped in his car and headed for the mountains. I called Lu, who told me I was a liar. Lu called Martha. Martha stopped Christy, who had planned to have dinner with Brad that night, as she rode down the bike path. I met my ever-smiling friend Dave for a late coffee, as planned, and for once, the smile fell from his face. He dropped his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes. Someone called a river rafting office in central Colorado. They pulled Reid, this summer a rafting guide but a years-long reporter and fellow photographer, off the river to tell him. He headed toward Summit County.

Where we were all going was not clear. But we were headed for what had all been home to us once, where we had all met Brad. We were also headed, I think, for one another.

Later, word spread that Mark was hosting a gathering at his cabin that evening. About 20 of us current and former staff members congregated there. People from "generations" of the Summit Daily News, some of whom had never worked together. We all knew one another by name, however, mostly through Brad.

Because of Brad, we were all family. The Summit Daily is a small mountain resort newspaper with a daily press count of about 10,000 papers. It circulates much further because of its resort location. It is 17 years old, which made Brad, me and a few others of us among the longest-standing of its employees. It was an upstart that took out a well-established community paper, so the bond among the staff was tight from the beginning. For years, I tried to get a foot in the door there.

And for those 9 years following, no matter how much I came to dislike the long winters, high cost of living and other things about the county, I never lost my love of the job or the Summit Daily.

Every day that I worked at the Gazette, I carried my Summit Daily mug with me, a shield against the negative emotions that permeated that newsroom. Perhaps even more so because of that experience, as well as the loneliness of my new city, I felt Sunday the depth of the bond that glued all 17 years of us together. Brad was the constant among us, the friend to us all. Even those he didn't particularly like thought he was their friend.

Friends come and friends go, but Brad would never fall away. This I knew. As did so many others. The letters and comments posted since his death tell the story: "Brad kept in touch with me years after I left the Daily." "Brad called me just the other day." "Brad remembered my birthday when no one else did."

For a while Sunday night, we all mingled in loose knots of three or four people. Then John, one of the paper's original staff members, called for us to form a circle around the campfire. "Since we're here for Brad, I think we should go around and tell some stories about Brad."

Most of us, we discovered, had spent a moment that day searching for the beauty Brad captured through his photographer's lens, the loveliness he found in the most ordinary of things. I had driven by his house and seen a smattering of wildly colored flowers. Brad would have taken a picture of that, I thought. In fact, he probably already had. Alex took a bike ride with his wife and son after he heard the news. He looked at everything around him with new appreciation. Others said they'd done the same. All of us, trying to see the world through Brad's eyes.

Someone brought up the old-school equipment he used to heli, tele and Alpine ski. Others recalled golfing, camping and long-distance hiking with him. Lacking the outdoor adventurer's spirit, these were entire areas of his life I never knew.

Someone else mentioned women and the entire group burst into laughter. Brad had always wanted to marry and have children, but somehow, he had yet to find the right woman. He dated, and dated a lot. Young, old, locals, tourists, friends past and present - but never co-workers. But despite Brad's reputation as a ladies' man, we all knew that Brad genuinely loved women. He did not use a single one. He respected them all. He liked them all, which was why so many stayed his friend after the relationships ended.

He also photographed them, often without attire. "Damn, there have got to be some nervous women out there wondering what's gonna happen to those negatives," Reid said.

We lapsed into silence. I looked around the circle, at all the lovely faces of friends past and present. Their expressions were caught in the glow from the flames. Some were smiling. Some wiped away tears. Others stared without expression into the fire. It was a moment of sad but extraordinary beauty, I thought, that needed to be photographed.

"Son of a bitch could cook!" John said. Again, a round of laughter.

"Did you ever taste his curry?" someone asked.

"God, that was hot stuff. He said he made it mild but no way was that mild," Christy said.

Everyone began throwing out the names of their favorite Brad dishes.

Someone circulated a bottle of scotch. Someone else passed a pipe. Silence fell again. Someone sniffled. Someone else sobbed as quietly as they possibly could.

I told the story of the Christmas Eve before last, when my friend April and I - both childless and uncertain what to do with our holiday - had come to Summit County and spent the evening at Brad's house. He cooked us an exotic dinner, on this night some kind of English stew with the bones still in it. We talked late into the night, Brad sprawled across the ledge along his fireplace.

"April's thong was showing," I said, inducing a round of laughter. Everyone knew almost exactly how the tale would go.

"Brad was in heaven," Reid said.

Brad had harassed April lightly throughout the evening. "I'd sure like to see the rest of that thong, April," he'd said. April was not interested, but Brad, accustomed to the power of his charms, believed she was. The next day, he'd called me and said, "Janie, I just didn't want to send you home along. But you tell April she and that thong are welcome here anytime." He had e-mailed me about it for months.

Brad kept in touch with old friends like no one I've ever known. He'd called me twice in the previous 10 days to tell me small news snippets he thought I'd like to know: that the former mayor of Dillon had died, and a few days later that a mutual friend had lung cancer. I joked lightly with him after the second sad pronouncement. "Next time you call, it had better be with some good news."

"I know, Janie," he said. "It's crazy lately, isn't it?"

During our years as co-workers, we took many long road trips on assignments. We talked about everything. Nothing was forbidden. Never did I feel I should hide anything from Brad. He listened in silence when I told him about my nervous breakdown, reassuring me I was solid as a rock and all the better for it. He offered advice on men, always encouraging me to date more, to relax, to not take it all so seriously. Yet, he was fiercely protective of me. With the exception of Iain, Brad found the men I dated lacking. "Janie, I just don't think he's good enough for you," he'd repeatedly conclude.

Brad had always planned to release a photography book of naked pregnant women, and during my pregnancy, he begged me repeatedly to allow him to take my picture. I would have trusted Brad without question to take the picture, and to be gentlemanly about it. I knew the images would be beautiful and tasteful. But I could not bring myself to do it; it was my own insecurities, not my insecurity about Brad.

"Brad," I'd joked. "It's not that I wouldn't do it. It's just I'd have to be drunk to do it, and I can't do that when I'm pregnant."

Brad was enamored with Robby, carrying him around the newsroom on his hip when he was not yet a toddler. Almost all the framed photographs I have of Robby as a baby and young child were taken by Brad. He is everywhere in my home; sadly, he is always behind the lens. Today, I found exactly two pictures of Brad (both with women). Such a tiny representation for a man who played such a large part in my life.

The last time I saw him, about six months ago, he'd organized a reunion for me at his home. Mark came from Aspen, Reid, Shauna and several others from Vail and Summit. I felt privileged, as always, to be invited to Brad's home, even more so that he had gathered a group for me. We ate something exotic, perhaps it was even curry, drank good wine, reminisced and talked late into the evening.

He hugged me at his door when the night ended. "We miss you here, Janie," he said. "I miss you."

I miss you, too, Bradford.

E-mails are flying like crazy these last few days, from people I haven't heard from in years, from some I've even forgotten. All say the same thing: Not Brad. He was my friend.

My friends express to me the way I feel: Guilt that we are looking forward to seeing one another.

We are reconnecting in the saddest of ways, though I can't help but think Brad would approve of the people he's bringing back together, the friendships he is likely renewing.

The services are Saturday. I can only imagine how massive the turnout will be.

I can't help but think, too, that if there is such a thing as heaven, Brad is witnessing our sorrow. If that were true, I know he was there last night with me in the kitchen. I could almost hear his mellow voice, saying, "Don't cry, Janie."

Loneliness seems to be the topic of the week.

Before we begin, allow me to apologize. This entry follows no logical chronological order, in short, because there are several moments that tie into it, but only one possible ending. And hell, it's my blog. I can do what I want.

I'm feeling loneliness keenly these days, working at home all day and knowing no one yet to call on at night for some after-hours fun time. Robby left yesterday, two days earlier than usual, and I face a long stretch without him. I came home last night without him and felt his absence more keenly than I have since my ex and I first separated. Then, coming home alone to the sight of his toys still scattered on the floor conjured up a heartache so great I sometimes thought it would split me in two.

My son is my buddy, and I realize that's dangerous in a way. In our new world, as both of us struggle to meet people, we're becoming increasingly reliant on one another for our social fixes. Long term, this just won't do.

The boy he met the first week we were here has seemingly disappeared, and though we see other boys walking the complex as we drive through in our car, these mysterious figures live in buildings far removed from ours. We met a group of about five of them once, while walking to the upper pool. Two were straddling bikes, one was clutching a basketball. They said they "just hung out" all day and that Robby was welcome to hang out, too. So, lest I sound cruel and unrealistic in the following graphs, realize these are not complete strangers with which I'm asking him to attempt friendships.

This week, I found what I hope is an ingenious way to be sure Robby makes new friends. It's called bribery. I offered him a weekly allowance: $1 for doing his small list of chores (cleaning the cat box, feeding the dog, making his bed), and $5 if he makes two rounds of the complex daily on his bike - searching for friends. If the search is fruitless, fine. But if he finds some, he must stop, talk and make an effort.

For a moment, Robby actually balked at the idea, ready to accept the meager dollar rather than talk to strangers. Quickly, I sweetened the pot, our soured it, depending on your point of view. "OK, $1, your chores, no TV, no games. $5, your chores, friends, games, TV. Which is it?"

Still he pondered it with great seriousness. But finally, he bit. In his one day here this week, he had no luck. I even demanded proof of his forays, evidence that he's not just cruised the streets but gotten off his bike and searched for them in likely places. "Bring me a cookie from the clubhouse," I told him.

He returned 15 minutes later with a broken cookie, offering it to me from the sweaty palm in which it had been clenched. "Awesome!" I said, then, "But I don't want the cookie." He looked baffled, then ate it himself.

My son is an initially shy child, often too quiet for my comfort. He has a busy, questioning brain and I know thoughts run wild inside him. I am always trying to figure out how to tap into this part of him. Sometimes he opens up to my inquiries, often he shrugs or ignores me. Monday, I threw out a random question. "Do you ever think about what it will be like to be grown up?"

"I think it will be lonely," he said.

I reminded him that college would likely not be a lonely experience, but he shook his head. "Not then. After. When I'm on my own."

I told him about all the different ways people can share lives; as roommates, friends and family members. I threw in a cautionary reminder that he should never marry because he's lonely, maybe more for myself than him. I told him that as an only child, he had an advantage over other children who never know what it's like to be alone until they reach adulthood. He acknowledged that sometimes, he actually likes to be alone.

"Do you think I'm lonely when you're not here?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "I think it must be boring."

At this point in my life, he's more on the mark than I'd like. But thinking back over the years, I know this is an anomaly, that I have rarely felt completely alone or bored.

There are times, however, that he'll never know about, when it seems overwhelming. Moments, particularly in the dead of night, when I wake thinking, "I'm 39 ... 40 ... 41 ... 42 ... and I'm unmarried, uncommitted, essentially alone. How soon before no one wants me? How soon before time runs out? How soon before it's too late and I'm alone for good?"

That's when I get up, have a shot or two or hard liquor, and render myself unconscious. Even if I can still hear the voices, their speech is now slurred and what the hell they're saying I don't know.

In the light of day, it never seems so bad - unless I'm hungover.

It is not the 1960s, where a single woman at 40 was doomed to spinsterhood. (Besides, I'm divorced. I can't be a spinster.) People divorce and remarry at any age, and marriage is no longer the only acceptable lifestyle choice. Even old ladies can date someone forever or simply live with them sans commitment and not be blackballed by their families and compadres. Besides which, as marriages go and divorces come, the prospect pool is always changing and never ending.

I question, too, how much greener the grass is over there. I've heard more than one shocking, unsolicited confession from married women who seem nonplussed at the idea that I'd like to remarry someday. "Really? If something happened to him, I wouldn't marry again. No way."

Typically, this is some soccer mom who knows she'll never see me again after the season. Typically, too, her wished-for-dead ex is standing five feet away making guttural man sounds as he urges his son on to bloodshed.

We all, it seems, make tradeoffs for the lifestyles we choose. I pondered it while Ally and I explored one of Denver's biggest parks tonight, a city park so big I got lost in it. OK, maybe not so big; I get lost with extraordinary ease, particularly when I'm gaping at muscular soccer players, roller bladers, cyclists, joggers, fellow walkers, other dogs and beautifully twisted gnarled trees.

I'd decided spur-of-the-moment to make the 20-minute drive to the park. There was no one to tell me not to. No one to scold me for staying alone there until dusk.

But there was also no one waiting for me when I opened the apartment door. And no one, I thought, to tell anyone where I was if something happened. No one could describe what I'd been wearing. No one would even know when I'd left or how long I'd been gone. No one was waiting with a warm hug, or a cold beer or to say, "I was worried about you."

The headlines would be depressing. I would be a Jane Doe until someone noticed the stink coming from my apartment. Not from me, mind you, but from my beloved George, who would die of starvation. Or until I missed the Monday Evercare conference call. Whichever came first.

But you can't change these situations overnight, and you certainly can't change them sitting at home on your lonely ass.

Perhaps it was Robby's and my discussion that lit a fire under me. Yesterday, after several days of wondering why I so loved my new home and my new jobs yet still felt so bereft (my word of the month), I got proactive. I searched the Net for business networking groups, found one, subscribed and marked their next event (bowling, blech!) in my Daytimer.

Feeling damn near saintly, I e-mailed the local DBSA chapter to volunteer my services and was shocked when they replied they were not in need of any facilitators. I would be kept on file. This scenario, I swear, had never occurred to me. I was momentarily stumped, and disappointed - to whom could I offer my philanthropic efforts now? I was even, one could say, a little bereft (ca-ching!) But then I got back to searching.

I decided to attend a Sunday afternoon workshop at the local library entitled, "My manuscript's done. Now what?" (So what if I don't have a manuscript? These are writers; I want to meet writers. I will think of something fabulous and intriguing between now and then).

I also forced myself to get up this morning, pack up my laptop and venture out to a coffee shop. I purused USA Today. I read an entire story about Lebanon and Hezbollah and felt I had climbed perhaps an inch out of the deep news hole in which I've allowed myself to fall post-journalism. A retired cop struck up a conversation with me about my iBook, then apologized for taking so much of my time. I resisted the thought of clutching his pant leg to keep him from leaving, much less telling him that making social contact was precisely the reason I was there.

I reviewed files, took notes and looked generally businesslike. The canned music, staff chatter and soft conversations of the people around comforted to a degree I hadn't anticipated. I'm optimistic again, about this working from home, thanks in large part to my son.

The night of our "growing up" discussion, Robby and I took our usual walk, cat and dog in tow, to the new and largely undeveloped strip mall behind the apartment complex. We've found a quiet corner on the side of the building where Ally and George can stalk rabbits, Robby can skateboard and I can practice yoga. Or rather, tipping over, since post-yoga classes, I seem to have lost the minimal balancing abilities it took me two years to gain.

"Let's talk about something," Robby said. "We always talk when we're here."

"What did we talk about last night?" I asked.

"Nintendo," he said.

"Really? I thought we talked about girls."

"We did. A little. Mostly, we talked about Nintendo."

So we chatted, about what I can't recall. Probably because it was Nintendo, which makes my mind go as blank as Robby's face when he plays the thing.

When we got home, Robby flopped on the living room carpet. He ignored the TV.

"Let's talk," he said.

"What about?"

"I don't know. Let's just talk."

I realized I had hit a vein with the grown-up question. My child, for these few hours, thought talking to me was the best thing in the world. I wondered how to preserve the moment. But all I knew I could do was relish it while it lasted.

So I laid on the carpet next to him and we talked. Maybe it was about getting George an ID tag. Maybe it was about the way the wind blew the blinds. Maybe it was about the new skateboard move he was learning. Again, I can't recall. I recall only laying there together, his blonde hair fanned out from his beautiful face as he smiled up at me.

I ended our conversation by announcing it was bed time. Our usual routine consisted of me washing my face, then coming into Robby's room and laying with him on his bed for a while, quietly unwinding before I slipped away to my own bed.

This time, when I opened the bathroom door, I sensed a presence in the room. Actually, I heard him release a very small fart.

"Can I sleep here? Please??" Robby already had wriggled under my comforter.

I feigned annoyance. Truthfully, it was a rare, and usually very special occasion on which I allowed him to sleep in my bed. The night before Christmas, his birthday, the day we washed the car, etc. He was growing up, and it was time to put those childhood things away.

"What's the reason?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I just want to."

But I knew the reason. We had talked much more today than usual, and were for the moment locked together in a contented connection.

"Alright," I said. "But just tonight. Don't ask me again."

He burrowed down further in the bed and released a contended grunt. Or so I heard it. I refused to believe it was another fart.

I crawled in on my side and turned off the bedside lamp.

The sheets rustled, and I felt the bottom of his small foot touch my calf. This was not atypical, but this time, he offered up an explanation.

"I just sleep better," he said, "when I'm touching someone."

Friendship, Part II

I begged my editor for another day. This was a sensitive story. I wanted time to think about and figure out the best way to approach it.

"No," he said. "You've got 20 minutes. Write it."

Fortunately, no matter how much I protest, deadline writing is often my best.

I wrote thinking about what I so admired about this family. They did not attempt to cram their beliefs down anyone's throats, saying, "Our way is the right, and only, way." They said instead, "These are our beliefs. We know the world may think we're crazy. We ask only for your respect."

Somehow, I think this came across.

The next morning, the phone began to ring with callers praising the story. E-mails poured in, among them a letter to the editor submitted by Zion's grandparents. They were all grateful, they said, for the way in which they'd been portrayed.

I met Paul, the toddler's father, the next day when I went by the house to pick up a picture of his son. I was struck by them both; Paul's startling blue eyes and fierce bear hug, and the photo of his astoundingly beautiful son who had his father's bright eyes and a round face framed by ringlets of blonde hair. I took it in my hands and felt he had given me a gift, a tiny piece of his heartbreak. Ever the journalist, I knew the readers' hearts also would ache when they saw the child's picture.

Once the Summit Daily broke the story, newspapers and media nationwide descended on the family's home. Paul called my editor.

"Do we have to speak to them?" he said. "We don't want to. We don't want to talk to any reporter but Jane."

The media then began calling me. The local radio station asked to interview me. I said no. A co-worker suggested I call the National Enquirer. He assured me I could get at least $1,000 for the story. He offered to make the call for me; he had friends there, he said. He was flabbergasted when I said no. Suffice to say Andy and I never were good friends.

Instead, the other media ran wire versions of my stories.

The family kept their toddler's body in their home for more than two weeks. During that time, I met his mother. She answered the door when I returned the photo. I was struck by her as I'd been by the entire family. Even in grief, she was pretty. I saw a grieving woman with frosted blonde hair, wide, green eyes and a wide mouth that I knew, when lifted in a smile, transformed her into someone remarkably beautiful. Her smile that day was weak, her hug firm.

I wrote the final story almost three weeks after the boy died. The family buried his small body somewhere in Colorado Springs, with the support and blessings of a church with whom they felt connected.

With that, I thought, the story and my connection to the Jungcks also was buried.

I moved to Colorado Springs and on with what I thought was the pinnacle of my career, putting even such extraordinary stories as theirs in my mental file folders.

I knew the experience had changed me, and I would never forget Paul's words: That we as humans can't begin to contemplate all that God can do.

It is precisely how I feel. While the Jungcks find this truth in Christianity, it fit just as well with my own sense of the divine and the only religion - Unitarianism - I've found that seems generous enough in its definitions to make me feel comfortable. Some may say it's the coward's way out, religion in the most general, vague sense. But for whatever reason - the twists and turns of my religious upbringing, my parent's sad marriage, my early traumas or simply my own logic - I can't wrap my arms around any one truth.

Regardless of all that, I temporarily forgot the Juncks. My life was going forward and they, I thought, were part of my past.

I was then, as I am now, a stranger in a new city. So the last thing I expected was to hear my name in the neighborhood Albertson's. I turned to see a man with startling blue eyes, a boy of about Robby's age at his side.

"It's Paul," he said.

I felt no click of recognition.

"Our son died, and you wrote about it," he said.

We hugged, struggled for words and settled on the politeness of strangers.

The family had moved to Colorado Springs to join the church that seemed to most closely match their beliefs, the very church that I came to associate with all that was wrong with Colorado Springs. A church whose leader, a close friend of President Bush's, believes gays are immoral and hellbound, that a woman's right to choose is not a choice at all, that marriage is worthy of preservation at all costs. It symbolized every reason, and in its extremism even more, I had turned away from traditional religion.

But a connection had been made months ago between this family and I. It pulled us together across our differences.

Paul's wife, Valerie and I, met a week or later at the neighborhood library. She suggested we go hiking. I agreed, sensing it would be a disaster.

It was, instead, the beginning of a friendship. Valerie believes God guides our every decision, and plays a part in all that happens to us. He took her son for a reason. I believe the opposite, that we are given all the tools we need to make our own way. That we are largely responsible for the twists and turns of our own lives. That sometimes, bad things just happen. Perhaps I am the sadder for believing I am the wiser.

But Valerie has a torrid past, a long spell of disbelief and rebellion, an affair with a married minister and sometimes still questions the God she believed in. She is kind, admittedly sometimes confused, human, accepting and loving. She is a woman, just like me.

Just before I moved, we took a long walk together. She talked about the kind of church she wanted, one she had yet to find: It welcome people of all varieties. Tattooed, rebellious and loud along with quiet, calm and conservative. She railed against a church from which they'd been encouraged to leave for singing too loud. Faith, she said, should be shouted to the rooftops if the spirit so moved you.

I thought that we were not so far apart. I didn't ask her how gays fit in to this church; I liked her vision and didn't want to risk blighting it. I liked knowing that we were, in many more ways than not, kindred spirits. I wanted to leave our friendship on the hopeful note we struck there, on top of a mountain overlooking Colorado Springs - the city I'd come to resent so for the hatred its most vocal residents seemed to me to perpetuate.

Valerie and I still e-mail. She told me that after years of fear and hesitancy, she and Paul had decided to adopt. They gave their hearts to a 2-year-old from an abusive home. Their hearts broke when the foster family adopted her instead. She's scared now, she told me, to open up again. In her last e-mail, I heard her determination and optimism ring through again. What she really wanted, she said, was a boy. It was time, she said, way past time in fact, to be pragmatic.

My response to her was, strangely, less pragmatic. I told her there is a child out there, waiting for her, and he's lucky beyond all compare. This, I know, is true.