The first time I met Dave was at a school auction.  He practically knocked me over on the dance floor.  For ever after I considered him an asshole.  Years later and through a series of this n that, Al ended up joining Dave and another couple of guys at a restaurant on Friday nights to tipple and talk.  When the good place closed and it got too expensive to go elsewhere, they ended up at Dave’s house.  Next thing you know, they were inviting me, and since I so very much prefer guys’ night out to girls’ night out, I went over.

Turns out Dave is not an asshole.  He is intelligent and funny and quirky and an absolute delight.  Turns out that dance floor incident was a result of alcohol and depression meds.  He would create wonderful meals and was totally interested in what other people had to say, he and Al would bicker over economic theory until we begged them to stop.  Then other subjects would take over.  I finally told him I always thought he was an asshole but now that I had gotten to know him – insert kitchen full of people laughing – he and I simultaneously teased that I KNEW he was an asshole.

Suddenly Dave met Renata.  From Canada.  For several years (five now?) she would come down from her Canadian home from October through March.  They were both smitten.  A couple of grandparents made to feel young again.  They snuggled like teenagers.  They travelled.  She and Dave watched his parents pass away. Together they remodeled the kitchen of his parents home which was also his childhood home.  He expanded the day room and in a sentimental nod of respect that some would think unlike him (but I had learned better) he replaced their green and black and white linoleum squares in the day room with green and black and white tiles.  The master bathroom was remodeled and I commended him on thinking ahead for when he would need to push a wheelchair into that shower.  He was still working on it when we left.  His oldest son moved into his old home.

He and Renata helped us move down here to SoCal.  As a man who had owned a trucking business he helped direct the guys who packed the truck, and loaded up his own truck so that we had two.  He and Renata could not stay, they had a few more hours to drive to a friends home who was expecting them.  They hoped to stop in on their way back but probably found another more scenic route home.

This summer he went back to sell the family homestead in Pennsylvania.  I forget the details, but it was an old home made out of unique material – handmade bricks? – and had been in the family since the early 1800s.  He always talked about it with love and admiration and we promised we would come see it, but now he was selling it.

July 4.  The phone rings.  Dead of a massive heart attack.  Age 65-ish.  Just like that.

Is this the way it will be now?  Is this what old age brings? One moment you are laughing and feeling young again, then next you get a phone call.  One moment you have finally stopped crying daily over a friend lost to cancer, the next you get a phone call.

My Jeff described Dave this way: “Can’t you just see him up there arguing with St. Peter? ‘No! No! I would use the blue pen too, but WHAT IF you used the black pen?'”  Last night I dreamt about Dave, again one of those we’re talking and making eye contact and I know that it is not real, that he has died, and so does he but he’s not rattled at all.   I was not expecting such an angel visit so quickly, if ever at all.  Dave was a skeptic about everything.  Didn’t necessarily NOT believe in God, but didn’t necessarily believe in God.  Didn’t necessarily NOT believe in the afterlife, but didn’t necessarily believe in the afterlife.

I like to think it was his way of telling me that this time, I won the argument.