Memories And Friends

I have a Facebook page! Yes at my age, I've become a Facebookaholic. It has been a very useful tool for finding dear friends (notice I didn't say old) from high school and beyond. One side affect has been nostalgia. Yes, it causes me to think about those people and how they influenced my life.

Today, however, I am thinking of a friend I wish I could re-connect with on Facebook. I didn't meet David until I was an adult and married with our first child on the way. But after meeting, we quickly became friends. Dave was, let me see, spirited. Today we would say he might have ADD or someother hyper- active disorder, but I like to think of him being spirited. Once, I looked out the window and saw Dave running over the hill toward my house with a pan in his hands. He ran up to the side of the house put what was in the pan into a bowl for my dog and then turned and ran back to his house. Sometime later I asked why he just didn't get in the car to bring it over? His answer was, "I was cleaning the kitchen and had put the scraps in the pot and needed to clean it too so I just picked it and ran outside and kept running until I got to your house then back home". Thank goodness I only lived about a quarter of a mile from him.

Dave and I went to Emergency Technician school together. We both became EMT's and worked for the local ambulance service, me full time and Dave would fill in as needed. One night Dave was supposed to work but got someone else to fill in for him. He chose instead to go to a high school football game about an hour from home. He picked up a young friend and off they went. Later that evening we got a call that there had been a bad accident just outside of the town where we lived. Our ambulance was stationed in another town that was centrally located in the county. We arrived about 15 minutes after the call to find my friend Dave as one of the fatalities of the collision. Somehow I found enough presence of mind to do what I had to for those that were injured. But Dave and what happened was still there. A few days later we laid my dear friend to rest.

I am happy to tell you that the story doesn't end quite yet. You see, Dave was not only spirited with his physical activity, but his spiritual activity as well. Dave was a real Christian. He didn't care who you were or what you did for a living, if he was around you very long you were going to hear about Jesus. But wait, that is not all. His actions were his words as well. As we stood in the funeral home and talking about Dave as people do about the one that has passed, stories kept coming out that no one knew except those that benefited from his actions. An elderly couple came by and told that Dave had breakfast with them most mornings at the Ritz cafe. A city worker came by, Dave worked for the city, and told that they would give Dave the dirtiest and stinkiest jobs they had and he did them with a smile on his face. It was his way to show his co-workers he valued them.

Dave died a little over 32 years ago, but my memory of him is still fresh. His death, like his life, was an image of God's love for all of us.