George

I will be flying a couple of thousand kilometres this weekend to say goodbye to my brother-in-law George. George passed more than a few months ago, but we are having a memorial dinner in Windsor this weekend. The family will gather and I suppose we will talk about George and what a wonderful man he was. This is as it should be, because he was a man that was genuinely a good person.

Yes, he had his faults, but there is no doubt in my mind that he is spending his time now telling stories and helping out in Heaven. He might even be doing some of his terrible magic tricks. They weren’t terrible; I just couldn’t figure out the trick and am a little jealous. George left the world a better place and it is at once bigger and smaller with his having been here.

He worked hard and loved his family. Not like a lot of us love our families in spirit, but George was the guy that was always there when he was needed. He would be the first to cheer you on when you were at the top of your game and he would be there when you felt all alone in the world. He never missed a birthday or a baseball/hockey game if he could help it. There is no way to calculate the number of lives that are the better for having George involved. I would guess that everyone’s life improved if George was a part of it.

George gave me my first car. Well, he probably gave it to his baby sister Louise who happened to be living with me at the time. It was a white 1971 Ford Maverick and I loved that car. It helped us move out west. I imagine that George kind of regretted that, but he was always the kind of guy that applauded and supported your decisions. Even when he knew they weren’t the best.

George loved a good discussion. Okay, he loved to argue. He would say things that he knew would get you going just so that he could have a heated discussion. Eventually, he would smile and laugh and you knew you had been had. Louise was the brunt of this far more often than I was and there were times she actually hung up on him. He probably deserved it.

We have lived out west for so long, that we didn’t get to see George or spend as much time as we would have liked with him. Months would go by and we wouldn’t hear anything from him or anyone else. Important dates would warrant a call, birthdays and Christmas, but for some reason that was it for many years. Sad really…

The people I should keep in touch with don’t get enough attention and those that don’t deserve the attention have more than their fair share. I should have called George more often. I should have let him bait me more often. I should have written more often. My life seems to be filled with more “should haves” than “I dids”.

Well, I am a better human for having known George and Heaven will be a better place now that he is there. I am going to miss you George!