Toast

As I never know when I might have to jump in the car and “GO”, I haven’t had a drink since July 25, 2009.  To those of you who know me, you know I’m not much of a drinker anyway, but I mention that for a couple of reasons.  First, because I was thinking now might be a time when a toast was due, because of the good news we received on Pat’s condition.  But since she can’t drink we’ll postpone it until she can.  Second, I was looking in the bottom of my refrigerator at a number of bottles of wine.  They have been there since June 26, 2009.  They were probably some the last bottles of wine purchased by my good friend Clyde who lost his life the day before in a drowning accident on Lake Mead.

LAKE MEAD NATIONAL RECREATION AREA Man Drowns In Crescent Cove [Printer-friendly text version]Claude Finney, 48, was with friends on a houseboat in Crescent Cove in the Virgin Basin yesterday when he jumped into the water for a swim. Finney had been treading water for about a minute when he called for help. By the time his friends began throwing life rings into the water, he’d slipped beneath the surface. Rangers were notified around 4:30 p.m. and responded with five rescue boats – two from Boulder Harbor, two from Echo Bay and one from Temple Bar. Las Vegas Metro PD provided a rescue helicopter. Surface and shoreline searches were fruitless, and operations were suspended at dusk. Weather conditions in the area had created a light chop, about one to one-and-a-half foot waves in open water. According to rangers, though, the water was relatively calm in the area where he was last seen. Contact Information Name: Andrew S. Muñoz, Public Affairs OfficerThis was the article written by the National Park Service.  It in no way does justice to the life of my good friend, but I imagine it is a fair account of what occurred that afternoon, I wasn’t there, but from what I’ve been told, it sounds accurate.I write this because I was standing there looking at those bottles on the second anniversary of his death thinking when, if ever, I would open one and drink it. That day two years ago began as any other, I got up and went to work.  I was transporting one of my clients to an appointment and as I was waiting for them I heard a news report that Michael Jackson had died of an apparent heart attack about an hour earlier.  For some reason the first thing I thought was I thought about was “I bet Clyde and them don’t know about this as they won’t have a radio as they are out on the lake”.  Although they probably don’t have cell service either, I’ll call Clyde and leave him a message and he’ll get it when they dock for supplies.  Little did I know in about an hour he would be gone.  I got a call that night saying he was lost and I was devastated.  Pat and I went out to the lake the next morning to meet up with the houseboat and the friends who were there to wait for them to recover him and just be there because we didn’t know what else we could do. This was also the beginning of the Journey for us.  Because I had not been on the job for 6 months I wasn’t able to go on this trip, or to the funeral in July.  Pat and I decided we would take the weekend after the funeral to go down and spend it with our friends.  That Pat had been having unexplained headaches for a couple of months, we decided a stop at the Doctor’s might be a good idea.  We never made it to our friends.  Pat was diagnosed with a metastatic brain tumor and a mass in her lung that night and we have been in battle every since. Though we never formally said our goodbye’s we think of Clyde often, it may be a certain song on the radio, (well iPod actually most times) or a thought about the trips we took to Mexico or other places or just sometimes out of the blue something will remind us of him.  We really miss him and I feel like our goodbye is incomplete. He will always be with us I know but, I often feel like I never got to say goodbye.  It may sound strange to say but I wonder how he would have reacted with me and what advice he would have given, as he had gone through this same battle with his wife as I am going though now with mine.  Clyde could come up with some interesting insights from time to time. So I say to you Clyde, eventually I will open one of those bottles, say a toast to you, and not, so to speak…”remember you”… for you are not and never will be, forgotten, but just, shall we say, have a drink for you, from you and to you.  BCBC my friend! Floyd