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Back when I first went on the road, one of the people I was introduced to was this guy Dave. He was a big heavy-set black guy. The sort that made your typical milk-drinker nervous just by standing there. But he was the typical "teddy bear". He was bigger than life and twice as imposing, but he was soft-spoken and gentle.
A little while later I met him again. It was the first few years of that hellhole known as LaRF, and he was the guy who brought in the kid's games.
He starved in the mud like the rest of us. He suffered, oh he suffered like the rest of us. However, and this was the most striking thing about him, his smile NEVER wavered. Never. Not for a moment.
This mythical beast had found some sort of inner nirvana that allowed him to keep smiling and laughing in the face of insurmountable hardships.
He was everything I could wish to be. Take the painful dirty blows of this goddamned life and universe, and stay standing, and about all, he did the impossible.
He smiled the entire time.
And now he's gone. And his creation would be considered a gift from above. But what sort of God would deliver us such bright joy and then so cruelly just pull it out from under us?
A good and kind God would have allowed him to live and love forever. To spread his joy, and teach us all everything will be okay.
In the end he's taken from us. Left us behind. Our joy turns bitter in our throats.
Gentle and loving, and taken from us. What sort of God watches us? What world is left in front of us?
I hope one day I learn how to be so loving and joyful.
God bless and God speed, Dave.
I hope at the end we meet at the same bonfire, because that will mean I'm in heaven as well.
