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For me, it started with a big shock. New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day were fantastic! They went as planned, and hoped for. No more details need be shared.
Then came January 2.
It was a phone call I never expected and was totally unprepared for.
“Elmer died last night!”
Elmer was one of my closest friends, a mentor and all-round supporter. For those of you who have completed a rent 2 own program with us, he may have also been your investor in the deal.
I’d visited him in the hospital the morning of New Year’s Eve. He’d had a mild heart attack two days earlier. When I saw him, he was on oxygen, but recovering well. It had been determined that a stent he’d had inserted three years earlier had failed. He was looking forward to getting it replaced.
The procedure was scheduled for January 2. His widow reports that he was doing remarkably well when she left the hospital after 5 pm on New Year’s Day, looking forward to his procedure the next day. By 7:30, she’d gotten the call that he had passed after a massive heart attack. I was one of the people she called the next day.
Some of you may have gone through something like this yourselves. You may know how this feels. But this is the first time I’ve gone through this with someone so close to me, other than my own father. But my father had deteriorated very gradually, after many “near death” episodes, that when he finally did pass, it was sad, but no shock.
A big hole has been left in my life. Elmer won’t be there for me when I would really like him to be.
There are others who, I’m sure, feel the same. Elmer was that kind of guy, befriending and mentoring others around him.
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