Losing a friend

I've been surrounded by lots of talk about death lately.  I've been preparing for it for almost 7 years now, and I know, I won't be ready for it.

Today, I was killing some time before an event at Pioneer, and I glanced through Facebook.  I saw a post my friend Lenny had made about losing a friend, and he posted a picture of himself with his friend.  I passed the phone over to Connie and said how good Lenny looked.  We hadn't seen him for awhile, although we just talked to each other last week.

He had called because he wanted to check on Connie.  To see "how his buddy" was.  They talked a bit.  Then she went to bed and I called him back, and we talked a bit.  At the end of the call, we had both made each other cry.  We ended up texting each other after we hung up, and we exchanged our love for each other.

As I took the phone back this morning, I realized it wasn't Lenny who had posted that.  It was his friend posting about Lenny.  He had passed away over night.  I called one of our old neighbors and she filled me in a bit.  I was literally in shock.  Connie and I both cried and hugged.  Then we went to our event.

Before dinner tonight, we both had a beer and toasted our friend.   We cried some more.  I told Connie that I had wanted Lenny to host her "Celebration of Life" parties in Ashtabula that she's put in her dying wishes.  it was going to be fitting that we do it in his garage where the three of us had so damn many good times.

Lenny was probably the first "non teaching" friend I had had in my adult life.  He didn't know me from school or work.  He knew me as the guy down the street who politely waved as I drove by.  A guy who finally got tired of waving when I saw him out, pulled in one day with my wife and a 12 pack of beer and said, "Hi.  We're the Sims."  That was the spring of 1995.  Damn, that was almost 25 years ago.

We golfed together.  We went out together.  We went to the Elks together.  But mostly, we sat at each other's houses, just down the street from each other, and just enjoyed each other's company.  A friendship that couldn't have been simpler.

When we got rid of the house, he got first choice of everything after my daughter.  He still used my old snow thrower (Big Red).  He got Fuzzy the Bear (a fixture of our basement).  He took the old fire bell off the wall. 

My last night in Ashtabula, before starting full time RV'ing, I stayed at his house.  He stole my car keys so that I wouldn't ghost him in the morning without saying good bye.

Tonight, after Connie went to bed, I was going to call up some friends and see who wanted to get hammered.  If nobody did, I was going to hit the bars in town.  Instead, I did a little more healthy thing and sat home, watched a couple of Disney movies that I'd never seen.  I drank water and ate some M&M's.  I cried a few more times.

As I said, I've been preparing for death for awhile.  But when one hits you out of the blue, it shows you your never prepared.  And as I've always said, you just never know.  I damn sure didn't today and I'm still in denial that I won't see my friend again. 

RIP Leonard.  I'm thinking of you.  Love you, man.