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Thank you for making me smile this morning...hearing about your love for the people around you...

I'm glad that the sadness is fading. Focus on the lessons you've learned from him, and take them with you. Better yet, make them a part of you.

Day 53 of being clean and sober.  I am having a good day today but this post is going to be mostly about yesterday.  My friend was finally buried yesterday.  Honestly, he was Jewish but not very religious and took the family a long time to get this funeral together.  (Not what I would have done but every family I guess is different and copes with death differently.)  I sat there listening to everyone talk of this wonderful man.  He was someone I looked up to as a person.  I want to share this because I think everyone on this website should read what he was and how he lived.  If we all lived like him, we would be a lot healthier as people.  This is part of the eulogy, I could not put it all in there as it lasted almost 1 hour.

He was kind, selfless, genuine, loving, and friendly.  He always had a smile on his face and would go to the end of the earth for family or friend.  He had no foes.  He was a candy salesman, but salesman in every great sense of the word.  He cared about his customers and made sure they were happy.  He was above all a wonderful family man, fantastic husband and patient father.  He lived life like it was going to be over in the second.  He was funny and was the king of the one liner.  He could make everyone smile just knowing he was in the room.  He never spent a moment that he did not think of someone else before he thought of himself.  He loved golf, bowling and sports.  You never saw him outside his house without his Jets or Dodger hats or jackets.  He never met a person he didn’t like.  He was an amazing grandfather and his grandchildren will always keep him in there hearts.  Three kids, seven grandchildren, his wife and countless friends.  He never talked about his kids spouses like they were not his own kids.  They were his children too.  A true family man that would do anything to make his family happy.

He never thought of how sick he was, only he would beat the cancer.  Why wouldn’t he beat cancer he beat lymphoma.  On his death bed he was worried about his customer orders and he worried how his wife and best friend would carry on with out him.  He pondered everyone else other then what was going on with him.  He even told his son, double check that the company calls every single customer to make sure they have what they need for the weekend coming up.  He worried he didn’t get to say goodbye to his young grandchildren.  He especially worried for one.  He was selfless to the end thinking about his granddaughter with Rhett syndrome. 

His love for his wife was not even able to be measured.  They were each others best friends and rocks.  He loved her with ever fiber of his being.  He lived with her on a different level of comfort.  They would give each other the strength to keep on going.  They were each others true love.  (She kept saying as we left the cemetery, I don’t want to leave him here.  I want to take him home.) 

Everyone there knew him the same way.  It did not matter if he was friend, family, or customer.  He was the most genuine person.  He gave me a lot of tips on life.  I cry the tears I have cried the past few days and have been sad because I knew he was always the best person I knew that was not a family member.  I will forever miss him.  I now look at my life and see all along I should be more like him.  Live, laugh, love was truthfully what he did.  I spent my day yesterday really thinking about him and his way of life.  I know now I have a true role model to use as my changed person comes alive.  I was talking to his son, who is contemporary in age to me and we are best friends, and all I could do is stand there at the cemetery and hug him and tell him his father was an amazing man.  He signed my Ketubah and loved him more then a friend, he was like an uncle.  His way he chose to live his life is the way to live.  We hugged and cried for a solid two minutes.

I was driving to work this morning and realized, I never thanked G-d for MM.  Thanks G-d for putting this amazing person in my life.  I spoke to G-d this morning more deeply then I think I ever have.  I asked G-d to help me be more like him.  I hope one day I could be as his son said, half the man he was.  I know that today is going to be a great day and sorry to all for not writing about today, but I knew I had to share this with everyone.  MM, I love you and thank you for everything.  You will live in my heart forever.  My journey is dedicated to MM and my goal on this ride is to be more like him.  Every word up above is the truth about a great man.  G-d is helping his family and friends through an extremely difficult time.

I thought about the mortality of my father, my mother, and most of all my wife and I.  How will we be remembered?  How do I want to be remembered?  Living life to the fullest and being a good person is the best thing people can remember about you.  Be genuine and caring for all you come in contact with and honestly love life.  Remember your G-d, keep him close.  Love your wife like she is the only woman on earth and make her your best friend and rock.  Respect your kids and love them unconditionally.  Make sure you are friends with your kids, comfort them in good and bad.  Respect your parents like you should respect yourself.  They brought you into this world they deserve you loving them unconditionally.  Always think of others no matter what before yourself.  Give your siblings the care and concern they need as well as the comfort of friendship.  They are the ones that share your same legacy and tradition.  Love oneself with purity of your own heart, just like you love G-d.  You won’t regret it, as I am learning that love for oneself leads to selflessness. 

No slips or falls, non needed or wanted.  I WILL WIN THE BATTLES AND THE WAR-WITH G-DS HELP!!!

Wow.

Well said...thank you so much for sharing this. We do, indeed, need to learn from him. And thank hashem for giving us the people in our lives that point the way for us to live healthier lives.

Thanks SB.  Living and doing is so much more important then anything else.  Someone said yesterday, take every single good word you can say about someone and you just described MM.  So true, so true.  I indeed plan on making him part of my life moreso in his death then when he was alive.  Lessons of life and living can lead you on the right path.  I wish everyone in the world had one person like him close to them.  The world would be a much better place.

Afilu b'misasam, kruyim chaim...

SB, meant to tell you, your not lonely.  Making the silent battle not is one of the best threads on this website. 

Ha...thanks.

Getting towards the end of the day and realized that the few days people have been posting on this thread.  Thank you all for keeping me going.  I also need to say I love my wife I forgot that in my post and have been trying to make that part of this journey to have my wife and I strong like a rock. 

:D

note to self - ad campaign for when moshiach comes, and people have healthy values (ok, there probably won't be ads, either, but whatever)...Chevy's ad can include an image of a healthy marriage, and the slogan, "built like a rock."

Sb, love your thread now!!!  Look who is "lonely" now. 

"Like a rock" needs to go into eyes favorite sayings of GUE!!! 

sci,
I just want you to know that I read your thread all the time, even though I don't often post. That last post about your friend who died was very inspiring; thank you very much for it. I am doing my best to work on myself so I may live and die like that man.

Too bad these little yellow message faces don't have a crying face to choose from.

Day 54 of being clean and sober.  I am feeling great today.  I keep thinking about living life and trying to understand my place in my life.  I really have tried to shake the feeling of sadness but its been hard.  In everything my two oldest sons asked me last night why was a sad.  I talked to them about MM and described what a wonderful person he was.  How he lived.  My oldest asked me this morning if I was still sad, and I told him yes, but I understand life better because of MM. 

After talking to my son this morning, I clearly understood what it meant to me to live better.  Here I am and here I stand beneath the shadows of living.  I obviously have awaken to life.  Now it’s about how to live not in the shadows but in the limelight of everything.  I know I need to take baby steps and am.  However, a major movement happened to me with this death.  If you let yourself live life to the fullest and actually love your life, you will be truly happy.  G-d gave us all of these emotions.  I know now the emotion of happiness is one that gives you true peace.  I know everyday I spend closer to my family and G-d I get a feeling of happiness because I am LIVING how I should.

Progress within myself continues as well as my relationship with my wife slowly.  I knew how much I loved her and how much I wanted to be with her, but I get a different feeling now.  She is my rock and always has been.  I thought to myself this morning as I was sharpening a pencil.  Love in any way, love of G-d, love of oneself, love of a child or love of a spouse is like a new pencil.  You can love the outside when it’s not sharpened.  Once you sharpen it, all of a sudden you can use it and not just look at it.  I know look at everything on the inside first.  The outside is a shell of what hold exactly everything you need.  The torah might have a cover, but the actual words are the important part.  Inside is more important then the outside.  Heart and happiness comes from the inside.  Living comes from the inside.  The mind is where you think and that is more important to use for living then anything else. 

I thank G-d for all you have given me and am trying to understand your almighty power over everything.  No slips or falls, non needed or wanted.

I WILL WIN THE BATTLES AND WAR- WITH G-D’S HELP!!!

Absolutely right - but I think you're even righter (is that possible?), because when we look at things on a deeper level, especially love, and act on it, we actually increase the love we have.

And waking up to life - that must be incredible...it's also a reminder of how we'd like to be remembered, yes? I think R' Orlovsky mentions that every day of our lives, we're writing our own eulogy (in a positive way)...In a deeper sense, we're creating our spiritual connections, even if we don't always see and feel it. Like a hidden bank account that's slowly (or in your case, quickly) but surely filling up!

Keep on living and loving!