A death in the family

I've often said that the people I work with are akin to family....a large, surprisingly close-knit family. If that seems to be overstating the case a tad, consider: assuming you get the proper amount of sleep (an admittedly iffy assumption in this day and age), and further assuming you work full time, you spend as much or more wake-time at work as you do at home...five days a week, anyway.

Every family has its tensions. We don't all get along all the time. But for the most part we function pretty well as a team.

And every family has its friends. In the case of our grocery store family, the friends are representatives. Most of them forge long-term bonds with us their clients. The best of them are eventually seen as extensions of the family.

Rick Kent, our Parmalat representative since our store opened a decade ago, was such a man. One of the most gregarious souls I've ever met, he was the epitome of friendly professionalism. We'd see him at least once a month, and he always had a funny story to tell. He was one of the truly great representatives, in that he wasn't afraid to call his own company out whenever their decisions made no sense whatsoever. (Which--if you listened to him--was pretty much every day.)

Rick used to drive a truck around to all his stores, first writing an order and then building it. He'd chatter to himself all the while, keeping up a running monologue and calling himself "Ricky".

Hey, Ricky, those warehouse dweebs didn't put any 580s on the truck, pretty stupid, eh Ricky? Yeah, pretty stupid all right there, Ricky, stupid for sure, and don't forget the 604s, Ricky, you can't forget those or Ken will be mad, and we don't want him mad, now, Ricky, do we? No we don't.

...just loud enough to be heard. It was entertaining as all hell waiting to see what was going to spill out of Ricky's mouth next.

I still remember him telling me, years and years ago, that he wasn't going to leave much of an order for Thanksgiving because "you can't stuff a turkey with yogurt." That became a running joke with us. As Thanksgiving approached three years later, I told Rick he was in the wrong line of business at this time of year.

"How's that, Ken?"
"Y'oughta be selling popcorn. Haven't you heard? Everybody stuffs their turkeys with popcorn now."

He'd probably heard the joke--it's old--but he obligingly played straight man. "Popcorn? How does that work?"

"You stuff the bird with popcorn, see, and then you cook it, and when the oven door flies open and the turkey's ass sails across the room...it's done."

Wednesday is my usual day off, but I've been known to go in on Wednesdays now and again to complete things I don't get a chance to do on other days of the week, like shelf relines. One Wednesday--and it bothers me I can't even remember when exactly it was, early summer, I think--I was merrily relining away when what to my wandering eye should appear but Rick, burbling and babbling up the dairy aisle. He caught sight of me and smiled and said he was in a day early because he had a doctor's appointment the next day and holidays the next week. He was goin' fishin'...a popular Ricky-activity. We swapped fishin' stories--the time my dad caught a fully skeletonized pike, the time he hauled in a largemouth ----THIS BIG---- and then he went on his way and I never saw him again and now he's dead.

A curtain of privacy descended very quickly once word leaked out that the doctor's appointment had gone spectacularly badly. I foraged around for details not out of any desire to publicize them but because I was concerned. I'm one of those people who would rather hear bad news, even horrible news, than no news. I could understand completely why his company was so tight-lipped, but it rankled. Rampaging rumours didn't help matters. Rick had had emergency surgery. He was home, recovering, and would probably pull through. Then I found out--on Facebook, no less--that he was gone. From diagnosis to death in something like six months.

I never got the chance to say goodbye. I don't even know for sure what felled him.

It doesn't seem like I have much right to hurt here, but damnit, I'm claiming what right I do have. Rick was what I've seen called a HOAG...a Hell Of A Guy. He touched a great many lives in a great many positive ways. And now he's gone. Death I can accept, grudgingly--like I have a choice. But I would have loved the opportunity to share just a sliver of his pain and thereby lessened it a tiny fraction. If I've learned anything at all in my short time on this planet, it' s that shared pain is lessened and shared joy is increased.

Unable to share the pain of Rick's impending death, I will at least go on Saturday to a memorial service to share in the joy of Rick's life. A life well lived, but far too short.