Let me start by saying that Randy was only 46, with a new baby and a fairly new wife. Life took him everywhere and sometimes nowhere at all.
We laid my friend down to rest on Thursday the 24th of May 2007 and my fingers are still shaking at the thought of loosing a friend so early not in just my life, but more importantly his.
At the funeral I sat and listened to the pastor speak of my friend who he stated he only met a few weeks earlier. He talked of Randy the man who was the here and now. I was deeply hart by this, as everyone sat and listened I still know in my heart that they did not hear who Randy was you know really was. I wanted to stand up an yell I OBJECT, by we are trained from a young age not to speak out of turn, and I was not asked to speak on my old friends or should I say young friends behalf. So I sat there with my dad hoping that this person who did not know my friend would be done soon.
What would I have said if allowed to speak? Well my friend was a giving person, this showed over the many years that he was a volunteer fireman, this is where I met Randy when we were only teenagers. Then I might have added how Randy liked to party, not in a bad way he enjoyed large get togethers and yes with a case or two, he enjoyed to laugh, and hanging out with his friends. I may have told some of our old stories of when we would go to parks to look for as he would put it the right women for him. I would leave out a ton of private thoughts that we shared just like any friends have their private thoughts and memories of each other.
Yes Randy was a devoted husband and a true father to his kids, Some may have looked down on Randy for knowing he was divorced once, but like myself we both thought when we were young men that we should be married and we found our spouses young and married them, only to find out the simple truth of what our parents told us, we were not DRY BEHIND THE EARS, and if you ever hear this pay attention. This advice is coming to you from someone who has been there.
Randy was a man, you know a mans man as they say. He was a laborer his entire life, first with a lawn center and then getting his dream job with Penn DOT. I wonder if anyone even knew he only had really 2 jobs his entire life?
Yes I will miss my young friend, even just catching him at the local department store and catching up on each others lifes. I think that is what really pisses me off the most, you know you are at the funeral home talking to some other friends and you say, I wish I would have taken some time and went to visit before he died. That is and was my fault, I strongly recommend that if you have a friend, make it a point to go and visit them. Or invite them to your house for a dinner or maybe a cook out. Try to do what is important to them or at least talk. Have we all become so busy that we only have time for our friends when they die?
Good buy my young friend, as I paused beside your casket as it was sitting above your bodies new home, I had a ton of emotions running through my mind. And hey they say the internet is reaching everywhere these days, maybe we now have a line to haven.
Sadly missed and always in my mind and heart. Never good by, just see you later.