hey buddy!

cliff was a really good man. for the past 16 months that i have called florence, kentucky my home, i have been fortunate to call cliff my neighbor. neighbors are a strange thing these days. on the street that i grew up on, i knew every single person and spent the night at almost every single house (there was this one trailor that was inhabited by a large family of "let's just say not the cleanest kids" that i was forbidden from entering by my parents). then i went to college and spent the next seven or eight years hopping around apartment to apartment to house to house and so on, up and down the coast of california. never really knew my neighbors. never really cared.

cliff lived on the end of our driveway. just him and chad, his 20-something son who has always been polite and cordial in our meetings. but cliff was something else. when the weather is mild (not too cold, not too hot) you can't walk or drive by without hearing a booming and energetic "hey buddy!" i'd look over, and there is cliff... sitting on one of those vinyl camping chairs, with a cooler and the AM radio tuned to the reds game. conversations hardly lasted more than 3 or 4 minutes... but if it were up to him, i am sure they would be longer. he was a carrier for several years, and had a bunch of stories to tell. he liked to listen to john mcarthur sermons, and would apologize when he let a cuss word slip, always making sure that i knew he wasn't trying to be rude or crass, but that he just has a loose tongue. he loved the reds. and thought the bengals needed to "clean up their act." he didn't go to cincinnati much anymore "too much traffic," he would say, "everything i need is right here in florence." a few months back, cliff sold heidi and me his old truck. this 93 chevy s10. has some rust, and drives like a tank, but it's a good truck, mechanically sound. cliff guaranteed me that. told me if anything went wrong with the motor or anything, that i could just "stop on by" and he'd help me out with it. he was sad to see his truck go, he just didn't need it. but he was really content, seeing it go to "good people" as he identified us. he'd smile and ask everytime we'd drive by "how's that truck running? that tail light is out, stop on by, i might have a new one in the garage somewhere."

yesterday, as heidi and i were coming home from sunday errands, it became immediately clear that something wasn't right. cop car at the end of the driveway. big crowd of people. chad looked like he had just got home from work, and he was quick to get people out of the way so we could pass through in the car. i asked him, with hesitation, with a sure sense of what the answer would be, "is everything ok?" that look he gave. trying to hold back the tears. trying to be strong. it might have been the first time he said the words aloud since he called 911 just a few minutes ago: "my dad's... he's dead." i pulled the parking break, and stalled the car as i jumped out to comfort this mere acquantaince. i gave him a big hug. what do you do in that situation? asked him if we could help, knowing full well that he would say "no."

as heidi and i sat on the step leading to our front door, just staring at the fence, knowing that there was true loss and sadness just on the other side of that weathered wood, she asked me, "what do you think cliff's doing right now?" without a moment of hesitation, i replied, "i think he's up in heaven. it's a perfect spring day, and he's sitting back on a perfect little porch. Jesus and Peter are walking by, and he's yelling out 'hey buddy!' everybody knows that he's there."

i don't do well with death. i haven't been around it too much. both of my grandparents died in the span of 3 months a couple years ago. that was tough. those were the first, second, and so far, only funerals that i have gone to for people that i knew and loved. i just don't know what to say or do. i'm really going to miss cliff. he was somebody very special, and he was so kind to heidi and i. i have my regrets - should have spent more time with him. should've got that tail light fixed. should've invested more time to get to know chad, because he could really use hope and comfort right now. but this isn't about me. i always try to make it about me. i try to make everything about me. that's a fatal flaw. this is about cliff - a very good man. a man that i will miss very much.