Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Two Years Ago

Will died of aspiration pneumonia, a complication brought on by x-ALD not long after 9:30 PM on a Monday. His favorite football team had won the AFC championship the day before and he wouldn’t get to see them win the Superbowl two weeks later. He loved to play pool and read Stephen King novels. He hated peas and loved chocolate chip ice cream. He was a fanatic about grilling and would drag the grill out of the shed on the coldest, snowiest day of the year to cook steak and veggies. He was a better friend than most of his friends deserved, gave the shirt of his back to most of them without asking for anything in return. He started his collection of states’ quarters for his daughter before she was even conceived - that’s how confident he was that he would be a father someday. He was a horrible handy-man but a great landscaper.

He never really knew his daughter, nor she him, but he loved her as much as he could before he forgot who she was. He spent the last two and a half years of his life cut off from everyone he loved and who loved him. He was just 32.

There is nothing else to say beyond - I loved him and he loved me.