A Sad Day

Today is a very sad day for me. My good friend Art has passed away. I'm not sure if it was yesterday or Saturday as I was notified second hand from a mutual friend. Art was a great guy who I met while working at a local Farm Market. I met Art when I was 16 and we proceeded to work together over the next 10 yrs. He was about 20 yrs older than me and we had this uncle/nephew type relationship. Throughout this time we became good friends, who would laugh, argue, fight etc., it was more of a brotherly relastionship really. Art lived in Redford and when Jessica and I met we moved to Redford, Art and I lived only a couple blocks away from each other. Because of this I was able to visit Art quite often. Anyone who knows Art understands he went through some tough times in his life. I'm proud to say I was there for Art whenever I could be to help in anyway. We had connections on many levels, but most of all our love of UofM, the Tigers and working produce definitely kept us connected. As I got married and had kids Art and I didn't see each other that much and the phone calls became much less frequent. If you attended our wedding ceremony Art did one of the readings at the church. I last spoke to art, gosh, a number of months ago. Art left me a message over the holidays and I had planned on calling him back, just hadn't got to it yet. I thought of him often but took for granted the fact that I had all this time. I'm sitting here unable to believe that he's gone. I'm embarrassed to say that my good friend was never even able to meet Cooper and Colby in person. This devastates me as I would have loved my kids to know such a great guy. I always thought oh, I gotta take the kids over to see Art, but just always had a reason not to get over there. Its a huge cliche but you just don't know what you have until its gone. I'm mad at Art for leaving us. Really mad. I know he's in a better place now. Rest in peace buddy, I will miss you, Go Blue, I'll always look up and point to you when I sing "Hail to the Victors".