Saturday, April 23, 2011

Old Dan Tucker

I always have good intentions of writing, and I have had plenty of thoughts ruminating around in my mind, but that is where they have stayed.
Today, I am writing about Dan Tucker, a significant person in my life who has now passed on.
When I first met Dan, I was at a singles party being annoyed by someone and wanting to escape. It turned out it was a friend of Dan's, but I never did know if he sent the friend to annoy me so he could rescue me, or he just came to rescue me because he saw the annoyance and the imminent flight look on my face.

He always told me he was a weekend warrior. That meant he worked hard during the week, focusing on his job, and played as hard on the weekend. He took me on my first adventure of camping on the beach in Mexico which is a story of its own for another day and we had many fun outings with the Corvette club he belonged to at the time.
He grocery shopped and cooked for me. He found great pleasure in enjoying a fine meal and many were the days I came home to wonderful smells and was happy those great smells were at our house.
We had some interesting and fun adventures together, had our highs and lows.
What I will always remember about Dan is what a friend he was.

Dan worked as a salesman all his life. He was awesome at it and he was respected by many, customers as well as other salesmen. He came home from work one day and told me about some customers he had that were from Japan. They had visited Dan in his office several times working out details for an order. He told me this one day that they had called him Tucker-san (I think that's how you would spell it) which is an expression of honor and respect. And I called him that myself on many occasions because it was so right on.
Dan allowed me the space to be who and what I wanted, no matter what. He didn't have a pre-conceived notion about me that I had to adhere to. I went from being a medical assistant to a massage practitioner and he thought that was wonderful even when it seemed financially challenging at times.

Dan dug into things with a gusto. I remember when his annoying friend gave Dan some stamp collection as payment towards a personal loan. Dan went to the library and checked out some books to learn if there was any value in the stamps. He was quite excited one evening when he thought he found several stamps worth what he thought was 50.00. What we later discovered was really where the decimal point was, making the worth .50. We had a good laugh but it was the beginning of a wonderful hobby for Dan that sustained him for many years. He became an honored and respected member of a Philatelic society in California as well as in Utah when we moved there. He became very knowledgeable about stamp collecting and loved the treasure hunt until a few years ago.

Dan also brought many friends into my life. There were many people who belonged to the Corvette club and several friends from other times. I introduced him to my friends as well and we have had many a good time, had a few fun adventures, and enjoyed good meals with great conversation.

There is a quote by B.A. Stanley that says "He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much".
He must have known Dan Tucker. A good friend and a fine man.

I need to thank Dan for the time he was in my life and the great gift I believe to this day that he gave me by leaving. I still cannot fathom what could lead him to leave a good life and go off to be alone knowing things would only get worse for him except that final gift lurking somewhere inside him in a crazy way.
If I failed him in any way or didn't love him enough, I hope he can and did forgive me.

What I imagine Dan doing today is fishing somewhere in the sunshine having a great time. Maybe playing a little guitar with his father since he never got to do that on earth.

May the moon light your way until the wind sets you free old friend.

Good bye Tucker-san. You are always in my heart.

1 comment:

  1. So sorry for your loss, Jeanne. This is beautiful. He would be so proud. xoxo

    ReplyDelete