I took this picture on Friday morning as I was walking out the truck. I jokingly said to myself that I had moved to Arizona, as that is what the colors reminded of. It was Friday I was looking forward to finishing up a couple of jobs for the year and having a quiet weekend. How can a day so full of promise go so awry?


After working at a house in Bedford Corners, New York I snapped this picture. It only partially captures the beauty of the scene. The Larches were wonderfully lit up by the bright sunshine. In the second picture you can see some of the tall marsh grass that was waving in the breeze.

When I got to the next job we got a phone call saying that Karen’s brother had collapsed and was being rushed to the hospital. When I called the hospital a few minutes later I got the terrible news that he had passed away on the way there. What a shock. At 53 years old Dale wasn’t the picture of health as he drank and smoked too much but still we hadn’t expected anything like this. Dale had just fell in love and gotten engaged to a girl from Australia. Since we had found out only 5 minutes after he passed I had to make some of the hardest phone calls of my life. That was in between trying to comfort Karen and being sick to my stomach. The rest is pretty much a blur.


I didn’t sleep much last night and Karen said I was crying in my sleep, which I have never heard of before. Not surprising as Dale and I were kind of like brothers. I just feel washed out like I have been put through a laundry wringer a couple of hundred times. I still haven’t organized all my thoughts but needed to try a write down a little of what I remember. I was going to say to try and make sense of what happened but upon further review I don’t think that will be possible.