Today was the birthday of the gentleman I worked with for over a year. He would have been 95. His wife had passed away two years before and they had never had children. He passed away last month, two days before my brother was killed. I knew he was dying when I left that morning. I had put my hand on his chest several times during the night because it was the only way I could tell he was still alive. He had been in horrible pain for over a week but had slipped into a coma before I came to work that night. I hope he wasn’t hurting anymore.
He was a medic in the Korean War and didn’t talk about it much but he did mention that he had a buddy who had the same birthday. He said he got blown up. He said he always thought of him when he woke up on his birthday. I don’t know if the guy has family who remembers his birthday but I thought about them both this morning.
I hope it’s okay to post about him on here. He wasn’t family and I hadn’t known him all that long but he became a good friend. Losing him was hard, especially since I lost my brother that same week and they shared the same name.
Happy Birthday to a dear friend and his buddy.