I'm not complaining

Roger, you will be missed.

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My great grandmother passed away last week. At 94. In a hospital. She will be missed.

However, this weekend, a man was taken from us all too soon. As soon as I heard the news, I thought first of his family, and then of myself. Roger was my mentor in many ways. His help with my business is one of the only reasons we’re still able to do it. His guidance, honesty, and generosity were unrivaled. 

I was sad. I lost someone. Someone I was close with and not prepared to lose. Someone who meant a lot to me and had given me more than I could ever have given back. And he knew this. However, I realized something as I thought about my own, selfish loss:

I wasn’t Roger’s only friend. In fact, very few people had ever “met Roger.” People didn’t “know who Roger was” or “yeah, you’ve mentioned him before.” With Roger, if you met him, he knew you, he remembered you, and he thought of you. If he ever met someone who you’d get along with, he’d introduce you. Good at guitar? He knew a drummer for you. Have a camera? He knew people who needed photos.

Roger’s dream was helping the little guys with skills and quality become the big guys. He was a dreamer, in that regard. Yet he wasn’t just a dreamer. He was a man who made dreams come true. He was a doer, and a passionate one. He never stopped finding opportunities for me, or any of his other friends.

With as busy as this would make a person, Roger was still a family man. I’ve never had beers with a man who talked more about how much he loved his wife and daughters. I’d never heard the fairytale from someone who lived it. Roger was all that a family could as for. He was all that a friend could ask for. And if that wasn’t enough, he was all that a man could ever ask for: A fisherman, A BBQ wizard, a tractor restoration enthusiast, heck, he even WELDED as a hobby.

I’m honored to have known him and been affiliated with his family in any regard. I can’t count the number of times I shared a beer with Roger, but I’m thankful for every one of them. And of all those times I had a beer with him, I never once got to pay, because he’d tell me every time, “You get the next one.”

I miss you.