Today I said goodbye to a friend.

I worked with Bill at Wright Patterson for about 9 months.  In those months, I met a guy who had truly lived a life less ordinary.  He was a man who spoke the truth, especially when it needed to be spoken.  He was an awesome friend that I wish I met when I was younger.  And now, he is with God.

I didn’t know Bill all that long.  But I learned two things from him.  The first, I need to be honest with people when it comes to negative feedback.  Especially when it comes to negative feedback.  Problems can be avoided in a professional setting if differences are resolved quickly and early on, instead of letting lots of petty minutiae pile up until it becomes a mountain of festering resentment.  That wasn’t Bill’s problem, but he told me a story where someone had these problems with him and affected that person accordingly.

The second, I need to see as much of this world as I can, while I’m still here.  Bill took trips down to NYC when he lived in Rhode Island a long time ago.  He knew NYC so well, it seemed to me that he had lived there, but he never did.  The short of it is that I will be taking 8 trips to NYC this year, and I will learn it well while I’m still young.

All I can say now is I wish I knew him better.  I kept putting it off, and now I’ll have to wait until later.

Ah well.  We will all see each other in the end.  In the meantime, goodbye Bill.

-TJ

(Read his obituary here: http://www.legacy.com/Dayton/Obituaries.asp?page=lifestory&personid=138944416)