A Semester Buddy Became A Lifelong Friend (Part Two)
"It is not goodbye but simply until next time."
After each establishing our reasons for the meeting. Dick began with a part of his life's story which included how he met his now late wife.
He was a boy whose father owned a bar and of course, she was a PK (preachers' kid). Her dad wanted nothing to do with him at first, but they wanted all to do with each other. She told him that the only way, he was to date her was if he were to take her to church. Dick explained to us that, that was exactly what he did… and after that, they continued being happily in love.
I asked if he didn't mind, explaining to me how she passed, and he says that unfortunately, his wife had died just this past July. She had Alzheimer's. It was at this moment that I think both of our hearts fell completely in our chest.
I immediately noticed the look in his eyes and deeply he was hurt, and I hurt for him. I told Dick about my grandfather who also had Alzheimer's and asked him how he managed throughout the process of his wife's decline.
"Honestly Makayla, all you can do Is take it day by day..."
His wife loved to garden. They didn't have a lot of money growing up and they stayed in government housing. He told us how both he and his wife worked and worked and eventually, after having a family, were able to purchase their dream home."
This was a big house that had a huge lake in the back."
He and his wife loved to just sit on their porch and watch the sunset on the lake. He had the most wonderful picture of this, one that looked like one of those screensavers that would come preset on a phone or computer. He told us how his wife, she loved to garden too – He started to notice that as her memory left-- her she would forget things like watering the plants every now and again. Now, this wouldn't seem unusual if his wife didn't love gardening as much as she did. Eventually, she ended up telling Dick how she just had no energy and no motivation to deal with the garden at all and he knew that her disease had worsened. They ended up having to sell their home because the financial burdens of keeping it would've been too much and Dick ended up moving to the Downs.
The conversation turned somber after that, so we found other ways to lighten the room back up. Dick took us on a tour around the Downs and introduced us to almost every person on every floor. This was indeed the cutest thing ever. We met people with stories you wouldn't have imagined and on multiple accounts, they asked Dick how he managed to get two pretty girls to stand him for as long as we had. By this time, we were honest to God enjoying ourselves so much that we let time slip and two hours had already passed. Since we had stayed so late, Dick had invited us to his monthly floor meeting. This was a meeting where the residents of each floor would meet up and voice their concerns to the floor's resident in charge (who just so happened to be Dick). Ariana, Dick and I set up 12 chairs for 12 people and 2 extra for his special guest. We all laughed, ate brownie crisps with green grapes and went around the circle and talked about how each person made their way to the Downs.
After the time, I had completely forgotten about the dinner I had promised to meet a friend at for days and just when I went to pack up the chairs and say my goodbyes, Dick asked Ariana and me, if it would be too much for him to treat us to dinner. Earlier in the day, he had gone on and on about a little diner up the street that he absolutely loved. We told Dick, that although we were aware of the dinner neither of us had tried it, but we were sure to put it on our to-do list. Dick, of course, remembered this and told us that we just couldn't leave without him taking us and as much fun as we had with him we just couldn't say no.
I then texted my friend to state that our dinner would be a little later than usual as another person had just invited me elsewhere haha.
As we made our way into Mac's, Dick insisted that we order whatever we wanted because he knew it would be great! We talked over burgers, we talked over fries and BBQ and we stuffed ourselves until we were too tired to even look at anything else. We made our way back to the Downs and said not goodbye but "until next week'.
(Almost four hours later) and day one was complete.
The next day in class, Ariana and I just raved to one another about how much we loved Dick Hall. We looked forward to the next week and as much as I talked about him to the people around me, they did too.
That following week we met with Dick at our usual time, but we walked in and saw him sitting at a little table at the entrance working on one of those massive puzzles. We placed down our things and immediately got to work on it, In the process of both fitting and failing ... we spoke about places that Dick had traveled to and how much he enjoyed each. Seeing as how our puzzle was one of the golden gate bridges, it was only right for Dick to express his love for the great city of San Francisco. He told us stories about how he often went there for work and how he and his wife loved the travel. We talked about driving the bridge when for some strange reason we then veered the conversation to talk about my bad driving. Bad parking and reversing, per se. Dick in the best way possible tried to explain to me how to back up in a straight line but I told him how in every way possible my car loved the zig-zag motion more.
A man of jokes he is, he then proceeded to tell me that If I couldn't finish my piece of the puzzle then there was no possible way that I could ever back in a straight line. Using his sarcasm as motivation, I finished the piece but still yet, I can't back straight. You win some, you lose some, I guess. This puzzle soon became a trivial part of our friendship as we all made it a common goal to finish.
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