Sometimes these posts are so easy to write that the words practically fling themselves headlong from my fingertips into sentences and paragraphs and the next thing I know there’s a finished article ready for me to hit the Publish button and share my thoughts du jour with the world.
This is not one of those stories.
This one is going to take a while and I’m not going to promise I’m not going to be some sort of hot mess by the time I’m done.
Almost a month ago, one of my absolute favourite human beings in the world David Falwell did a bit of scribbling on my Facebook time line that it hadn’t escaped his notice that I was indeed still older than he was and a little later we were going to see about getting back together at a pub for the first time in a very long while during the NHL playoffs.
I would have never imagined in a million years that would be the last time I would hear from him.
Over a hour ago, I found out that Dave had passed away two weeks ago and I’m not going to sugarcoat this: it hurts my heart like hell to have to accept that he’s no longer among us to share that infectious smile and lovely laugh of someone who always found the beauty and bright side of living in this world and wished nothing more than to share his sincere love and faith with everyone who crossed his path.
There aren’t words in the English language capable of properly describing how much my heart positively aches for Susan who is even a bigger sweetheart than Dave and his parents who are truly special people who could bring someone like Dave into this world to walk amongst us.
I’ll admit that my very first reaction to finding out this had happened was to wonder how in the world my Facebook account could have gotten hacked so quickly again after I’d changed the password and enabled two-factor authentication. After all, it was a link to a video purportedly about someone I knew that had died that had been spammed onto my timeline that had led to that hassle in the first time.
I’m sure whatever part of heaven Dave is looking down upon this particularly foolish mortal is reverberating with his laughter at the sheer irony *THAT* was my first reaction upon hearing the news.
After all, he and I spent more than a few years working together (some of which were sharing an office in Chapel Hill) and he’d seen my tendency to look for exceptionally complex causes of the failure first when debugging computer code rather than going through the simple and likely stupid possibilities that were easily fixed straightaway.
But no, unlike that Facebook phishing attempt which I’ve now seen try to suck me in three more times since the hacking…it became all too clear very quickly that this news was horrifyingly accurate.
If I were to try to put a finger on why his passing is hitting me much harder than usual, I’d have to say that even though he was only three years younger than I am, he always seemed much younger at heart. More than a few times it would be all I could do to not let the word “kid” slip out of my mouth because he was generally such a happy person and that baby face of his made you think he was probably 10-15 years younger than he actually was.
When my father passed away, it was after many years of ill health and many more across a few decades of waiting for “the call” that would set the wheels in motion for me to attend to his final affairs. Even though losing Dad reverberates with me nearly a decade after the fact, it’s not because I had felt that he had been taken before his time.
That’s not the case with Dave.
I never dared to think that he’d pass away before I did because he was so young and full of life with the prospects of enjoying riding his motorcycle with his mates in his church’s motorcycle ministry and going on rides to share his message of peace and joy in Daytona Beach and Myrtle Beach and wherever else the riders would gather.
When he’d describe his riding ministry, it was never “work” but rather the passion and calling of his heart to share his faith in the hope that one would find some measure of peace and solace in their own life.
There are those who profess their faith and then there are the much rarer ones who truly live and bear sincere witness to the truly spiritual and blessed life that comes of true faith and fidelity to the proposition to love their neighbour as themselves and to make theirs a life of service to the needs of others.
You could see it in all of the lives Susan has touched through the classroom and the devotion that David and Susan have had for each other longer than I’ve known them.
I never had cause to ever question David Falwell’s strength of character and faith and love for his neighbour and even though he has passed beyond the veil, his memory serves as an inspiration for us all.
That is why of all of the good memories of Dave I will cherish forever, my favourites are that he and Susan were there for all three of the baptisms for my children (the picture on this post is showing them holding Katie at her baptism in 2007).
See what I mean about that smile and the baby face? 🙂
That’s not to say that I don’t have other memories where I feel blessed that I was able to share some time on this Earth with him.
When I first met him, he may well have known about hockey in an intellectual sense but after he attended his first Hurricanes game, he was definitely hooked on the “coolest game on Earth” and he’d wander round in that jersey quite proudly. And even though he and Susan spent a few years in Chicago before returning back to North Carolina and he would take in a Blackhawks game every now and then (that’s when the Blackhawks didn’t stink and were winning Stanley Cups on a regular basis), I know his heart always had a soft spot for the Hurricanes.
It was nice having an office mate at work that we could talk puck and then turn quickly to designing and writing code. He was definitely one of my favourite co-workers ever and we’d often have long conversations during those boring release weekends where you’re spending hours on end in “hurry up and wait” mode that would touch on every subject you could possibly imagine…faith, politics, technology, you name it.
And then there were the times where words just weren’t needed where he’d be there for you.
We were in our shared office on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill on 11 Sep 2001 when the newsflashes started coming through that planes had struck the Twin Towers and the opening hours of the attacks were upon us. I remember he didn’t say a whole lot but you could see the emotion in his eyes and the occasional tear. As you can imagine, not much work got done that day…after the 757 slammed into the Pentagon, we went over to Bailey’s for a couple of hours before heading our separate ways.
Less than two years later, our oldest son would be born and I appreciated his patience with a new father who really didn’t know what the heck he was doing. He’d be there when our younger son was born and quietly moved heaven and earth at work to make my life much easier when I’d have to take off for Washington DC for three weeks at a time for Alexander’s surgeries. I don’t know how many of my other co-workers knew just how much he did to keep me from going stark staring mad and be the calming influence I desperately needed during those dark times.
Through the years, he was always there.
Even when he left for Chicago when Susan got an amazing opportunity to build a proper STEM programme in the Chicago Public Schools from the ground up (if you ever want to see true love in action, that was the clearest example I’ve ever known), knowing that he was happy and living life well even as I had wondered if he’d find Chicago to be as overwhelming as New York City was to Crocodile Dundee was a joy and an inspiration.
Even though through the years we didn’t see each other or hang out as much as we did when we worked at the same employer, I can assure you that he and Susan have always been and always will be cherished friends who I genuinely feel are amongst the nicest people I’ve ever known.
That’s why this hurts so badly and is going to for a while.
He was too young but I can at least try to find some measure of solace and peace knowing that he’s in a far, far better place now. He’s in a place far more fitting with the special and spiritual person I had the honour to call a friend but in his way was as cherished to me as those who were born to the family.
I can only hope that Susan and his parents and all the others who loved Dave and his impact upon their lives being similar to his impact on my own may find peace and solace in their way and in their time.
May his memory be a blessing to others.
