When a good friend dies or bites the dust – or passes away, which is a diviner way of expressing it, it’s still a shocker. My cousin and friend, Dave, left us about two years ago. He phoned me months before to say his days were numbered. I didn’t take time to visit with him. If it was the other way around, he would have been at my side. His untimely departure made me think. I now study the obits and count the ages of those listed. If there are more of them older than I am, it’s a good week. If younger, then I worry.
His funeral was one of those where person after person rose to claim what a good father he was, a good husband, a good friend or a helluva golfer. They said that Dave was dedicated to his favourite charities, his neighbours in need and of course, his church. What a guy I thought.
On the way home I got thinking of a favourite experience we had shared. It was at a baseball game in Montreal years ago. I wrote the story below for his memorial.
Dave and a Baseball: My cousin Dave and I have been friends since our youth and have shared dozens of cherished memories over the years. Some of them can’t be told but the rest would be wonderful to share with those who knew him. One in particular said plenty of Dave’s character. In our early 20s we drove one day to Jarry Park to see an Expos game. I don’t recall the opposing team but I do recall a hard line-drive hit by an Expo batter. We were sitting in the seats near the first base section. That bullet was heading right towards us and I and other fans dived to the seats in fear. Not Dave though. I looked up at Dave with amazement. He was standing and, being prepared for the ball, caught it in his bare hands without a flinch. The look of self-confidence on his face complimented by a broad grin explained much about who he was. I think that if there ever was a sport Dave couldn’t have excelled at it hasn’t been invented yet.
There were 37 condolences on his obit and two stories. My story was better than the other one though. This excerpt from one condolence was fairly representative of them all, “we are so sad to hear of Dave ‘s passing …what a sweet man he was …always accommodating, always helpful at work and a great friend”.
If I ever thought I would get that many consoling messages, I would consider the end less seriously. As it is, I’m only expecting one or two. It is the obituary that is most important. I’m thinking of writing mine before the time comes so there is no screw-ups. I probably wouldn’t know anyway!
Now I haven’t played many sports, at least not well. There was hockey until I got tired of cold rinks and playing on the third line. It was a desperately frosty night in Beachburg when I laid down my stick for good – at the ripe old age of 13. Dave on the other hand played goalkeeper from an early age right into his 30s. He finally gave up hockey as it was interfering with his 10-pin bowling. His bowling trophies became so plentiful he rotated the older ones into a storage box or used them for flower vases.
I didn’t play much ball, the odd baseball game as a kid and a few years of softball as an adult. Dave on the hand gained stardom as a pitcher in Little League, was even scouted when he was 15. That fizzled out so he tried golf.
Did he excel: He was club champion at 19 and held that reign for more years than not until he began to slow. He never missed two things, attending the Canadian Open’s in Oakville and going to South Carolina every year with his very best friend Tom to play golf.
You see, their girlfriends were in training for nurses at the same time and the four of them were tightly knit ever since. For Dave’s funeral, Tom couldn’t get back in time from South Carolina and will likely never forgive himself.
My last visit with Dave before he got married was at the house they would move into. We were going to shoot snooker; one game I was competitive in. While waiting and chatting until time to leave, I noticed he would pull out a kitchen drawer then close it. After the third time, I snuck over, opened the drawer and saw a list of chores a mile long for him to do. When he came for the next one, I said, “Do you have to do them all”, to which he replied, “Not until tomorrow morning”. Later, I beat him three games to one. I felt so blissful, I couldn’t help rubbing it in.
Over the years I began to see Dave with athletic skills on one hand but subject to being affected by other people’s needs on the other.
Always putting them before himself made him seem like an empath. You either are an empath or you aren’t, so they say! Dave’s tendency even made him a risk to ignore his own needs. Yet in Dave’s case, the sports may have been his alter-ego that balanced off his non-aggressive and peacemaker ways.
I guess I could have been jealous of Dave’s prowess in sports but It was the obliging side of him that I could never be. You see, I do help my neighbours and I volunteer in the community but no way could I make a career out of it like him. I like to be snarly and standoffish on own terms.
