puglogic
6-25-11, 8:45pm
I have been friends for many years with a man whom I'll call Bernie. Thirty years my senior, he was married to my eldest sister, who drank herself to death about 12 years ago. He remarried, moved to Baja in Mexico to retire, and we remained friends over the years -- he met and approved my husband before we married, etc. Really wonderful man, and I often wished he & his wife lived closer. We had only three occasions to be with them in person over the past decade, mostly because of the logistics of flying cross-country, crossing the border, etc. But we emailed, and talked on the phone at least once or twice a year, and exchanged birthday cards (his birthday and mine fell on the same day)
I was surprised to learn from an email from his widow this morning that Bernie had died peacefully in a hospital in San Diego. He was a hale & hardy man who seemed fairly indestructible, and I didn't know he'd been ill.
There will be a memorial service in California next month, and I'm pondering whether it's the best way to honor his memory or not. I did not know his "new" in-law family well, nor much of his biological one, nor his local friends, and so can't really offer much more than a hug and a murmured condolence to his widow.
But I feel this gap in me, as though there is something I wish to do to show my gratitude for all the kindness he showed me over the years, even in the hell and aftermath of end-stage alcoholism.
Maybe the hurt's still too fresh to be thinking of things like this, but I'm already starting to wonder: What can I do to honor him? What have others done in similar situations?
I was surprised to learn from an email from his widow this morning that Bernie had died peacefully in a hospital in San Diego. He was a hale & hardy man who seemed fairly indestructible, and I didn't know he'd been ill.
There will be a memorial service in California next month, and I'm pondering whether it's the best way to honor his memory or not. I did not know his "new" in-law family well, nor much of his biological one, nor his local friends, and so can't really offer much more than a hug and a murmured condolence to his widow.
But I feel this gap in me, as though there is something I wish to do to show my gratitude for all the kindness he showed me over the years, even in the hell and aftermath of end-stage alcoholism.
Maybe the hurt's still too fresh to be thinking of things like this, but I'm already starting to wonder: What can I do to honor him? What have others done in similar situations?