There are people we encounter who seem to be giants. Larger than life they make an impact – leave such an impression that a little of them is left behind, it helps shape a part of our character.
Today I got word that my former CO has checked out. A stern disciplinarian, he had an engineer’s eye for detail and the ability to grasp complex detail with little prompting.
I served under him for eight years on the West German border (and, on detachment, in other locations) during which he frequently got me (and the 3,000 other staff) out of bed with the alert klaxon at very unreasonable times in the early hours.
His relentless training paid off three times in the real world. I can confirm we wouldn’t be where we are today if he hadn’t trained us to perfection.
I’ve been invited to his funeral on 11th March. I don’t know if I’ll go, but I may hold my own remembrance.
The day I saw the sign he’d had put up at the main gate shaped my life for the next 8 years.
S’funny… as I was driving back home today, for some reason I thought of an old work colleague who has since departed: someone who had an impact on me in my early engineering years and whose outlook on life is one that I partially made my own.
I don’t know why he suddenly popped into my head, but I’m glad he did. A top bloke.
Fond memories of people who made a beneficial impact are worth dwelling on
I regularly recall and talk about a colleague who was a big part of my working life and also a small part of my other life. She was, for around 6 years, my boss. I know many other people whose lives she also enriched. It was so unfair that after beating cancer twice, a third run-in proved terminal. I remember the day, some time after she quit work, that she popped back into the office for a visit. So many people came by to chat that it felt, to me, like a living wake. I went out for an hour and when I returned only a few people were around so we got to chat a little. About the last exchange we had, I gave her grief about an event years before and she gave it right back. Just like we used to. Gone, but impossible to forget.
Aye, the imposible to forget people leave a mark