Good Bye, old friend!

G'day Everyone.

Ever have a moment when you are snapping pictures and talking with many deaf friends at a party or banquet and suddenly, your pager goes off? You do a "What the heck now" as you pick up the pager. But the first words I read was a friend's name that had just died that day.
I ran right out of the party to outside. I had to get away. I needed some moments alone to scream, cry, and compose myself.
Then I went and got my long time good friend and told him who died.
So who died, you ask?

His name was Steven J. Worrell. At just 54 years old, he had just passed away.
The truth hurts. I've known and loved this person for a long time in my life. We all thought that he had plenty of years left despite when he fell down on the ground and got a nasty cut that took a trip to the ER where it was revealed he had low oxygen in his body. The awful thing is that we were all hopeful that he did have a few years left. Because after he was transferred from a Pittsburgh hospital to a Ohio nursing care home, he improved for the last 6 months.
But then, he just couldn't hang on any more. He was back in the hospital for the last time where he died in peace.
I felt very sad that I had many chances and opportunities to visit him over the last several weeks. A trip out to Ohio was planned to visit him. But now, it looks like I will go to his funeral to say good bye to my friend. I always called him "old man white patch" because he acted like he's old while he's got raven black hair with a white patch just above his forehead.
He used to call me as his "Steve 2". We always traded verbal jabs at each other.
Well, he's gone now. I can only hope that God reached down and called him in a gentle voice to come to his home.

Well, I did thank that person for letting me know that Steven Worrell passed away. Several people, who heard my conversation about Steven worrell pass away, came over and hugged me. Some told me stories of their own adventures of Steve Worrell in the long ago NTID days. Hearing their stories makes me happy to know that he has a lot of caring friends.

Please pray for his family. They knew this was coming and were very prepared.
But for me, I look forward to seeing him again some day. So as I look heavenward, I said, "Hey, Steve 1! Be good up there! Don't make come after you and call you white patch again!". I know he's going to smile. God bless, Steven Worrell.

Rest in peace old friend.

Semper FI.