To Chad

Sir, you were not long my boss.  As much as it might have surprised the me I was when we met, I wish it could have been longer.  I didn't always see it through my selfish eyes, but you always treated me with more respect than I was frankly due.  But now, what I see is another hole in life where someone should be standing.

This has been a horrible year in many ways.  Not so much work-wise, though it did at times have the seeming of Gilligan and the Skipper clinging on to the rail while the Minnow's wheel spun uncontrollably.  (Had to throw something like that in, lest you wouldn't know who this was, right?)  But I would have to say this is something that has affected me in a way I don't quite understand.  With Scrappy, it's like I keep looking around for missing pieces of me.  This, this is more like living at the foot of a mountain, and one day the mountain just ups and disappears.

Your boss was in, and he did his best to say all the right things.  Did a damn fine job, in fact.  He tried to buoy us up, to look forward to good things, many of which you had a hand in.  As one of my co-workers said, "Maybe tomorrow."

Your wife came in, too.  That is one brave woman.  I don't know how she could handle coming in and talking to a basic bunch of strangers that soon.  You were truly blessed, and I get you knew that.  Once upon a time, you told me that you saw me as a man of integrity.  She talked about how much that word meant to you.  I thanked her for letting me know what an enormous compliment that was, as I had no true appreciation of it- not to what it deserved- before then.  And thank you.

I think the bite marks in my arm from trying not to break down as she talked are almost gone, finally.

I have learned a lot of lessons I thought I knew, but didn't, over the last few years.  If someone asked me what I learned from you, this would be the easiest question of the bunch.  The lesson you taught me that I needed the most when you taught it was, that there are different layers and levels of humility, and I hadn't even started yet.  You showed me that when I lifted my "throw rug", I had a lot of dirt under it- entitlement, pride, arrogance, all of it masquerading as virtues that I of course waved like a banner.  And when I saw it, and started taking it apart, there was a very physical element that everyone could see that I had to take down.  Others thought you might have ordered me to do it, and wanted to get mad at you.  You came over and cared enough to ask if it was your fault.

I wish I would have appreciated THAT when it happened.  I certainly did later on, though not like I do now.

Satan has to find a way to mock everything God does.  He has many ways to mock life, but the biggest one is death.  I can only hope you are in heaven right now, looking Satan in the eye and saying, "So what?"