Paul was my best friend.  Knowing Paul, he was a best friend to many others.

This picture is how I remember Paul.  Laid back, easy going and ready to get down to business and get things done.  “Bingo, bingo, bingo” was a saying that he kept alive from our trigonometry teacher and his football coach.

We met in high school.  I changed high schools in my junior year after my parents bought a new house in a different school district.  I can’t recall exactly recall how we met.  I do remember it had something to do with the fact that by fate, we had 3 or 4 classes together.

I guess you could say that he adopted me, instead of me making a new friend.  He was the first one to step forward and invite me into the pack.  It was a welcome invitation into a new, unknown world.

As high school progressed, we again had many classes together in our senior year.  This friendship also led to many common activities outside of school.  Then graduation came.

We both had interests in military service.  I always thought he was wrong about choosing the Air Force and rightfully teased him about his choice.  He returned the banter about my choice of the Army.

Off we went, making our way in the world to discover why so many others had chosen the call to military.  While I was discovering the millions of sweat pores on my body in the hot Lousianna summers, Paul was wondering if there was ever any sun in England.  I suppose that the Air Force had some pity on him and transferred him to New Mexico.  Either that or it was a sadistic joke by some staffer in an office job.

Fast forward a few years, service time done, university and school out of the way, we settled into our lives.  Paul married his high school sweetheart.  I was honored to be one of his groomsmen at his wedding.  I married a girl that I met a few years later.

Life, careers, spouses, houses and children.  I moved away but we managed to stay in touch over the years.  Now our children play together when we get the chance to get together, thought not as often as I would have liked.

He was truly a giver and really gave back to society and community.  It started with his Air Force service.  After the service, he became a teacher and taught at the same high school that started us out in life.  He also continued his high school passion for football by giving his time to work on the high school coaching staff.

With his wife, he gave the world three beautiful girls.  He gave up his bathroom too.

Though he passed away today, I will remember today with a smile, for it was the sunniest, warmest day of the near end of winter.  A release, if you will, of the hardship that Paul has been enduring for a while now.

He will be great missed.

If you see me this holiday season and I look a little dewy-eyed, it’s not the alcohol, but the countless reasons that I have to be grateful for this year. As I look back at the trying times that my family and I have experienced this year, I’m sure that you would understand.

We go through life down our various paths, not thinking for a moment on what can be around the corner or what we will wake up to one morning. Such a thing happened to me in one February morning this year. I found myself, along with many others, facing unemployment in an unstable economy and not sure what fate had in store for me and my family.

Severance pay would only last so long and then what? It’s times like this when you find out what you’re made of and who your true friends are. It’s amazing to see the support and compassion that comes to the surface.

I can’t even begin to name all of those that lent a helping hand. That helping hand showed itself in many forms of support. The many opportunities that helped provide firewood for our woodstove this season and those that stopped by to help us split and stack it. The many opportunities that led me to driving all over the Greater Toronto Area to help people beautify their yards by doing stump grinding, while at the same time I was earning a little supplement grocery or utility money. To the many professional acquaintances that lent support by creating interview opportunities that eventually led to re-employment.

For all of this, I am extremely grateful, but it doesn’t stop there. I still have some acquaintances that are still struggling to find employment and this worries me. Something that has occurred to me since the events of the past year is that it has I have developed a personal mantra, “Every day is a new opportunity.”

What is that opportunity? I don’t know. But everyday some thing shows up.

I have been thinking about writing this all day long as I ran some last minute errands. My gratitude goes out to those that had to deal with the worst retail day of the year, the store employees themselves. They had to wait until 5 or 6 p.m. just to rush home to a Christmas Eve dinner and the continue that rush to tidy up any last minute details that were put to the end of the day because they had to work.

As I sit here writing this, the effects of the Rolo martini cocktails are a short memory away, the dinner dishes are done, the left-overs are in the frig and the kids are trying to sleep, anxiously awaiting Santa to come and bestow his Christmas magic.

I realize that I have been truly blessed this year. I can only hope that you have been also.

Merry Christmas.