Having been seriously stunned hearing this yesterday afternoon I woke up this morning thinking that perhaps it was just a bad dream, if not then just a horrible practical joke.
I only met Terry the once in 08 at Canton as well. That was around the start of a bad time in my life with my sisters failing health and later death and my moms altzheimers diagnosis where I was just about at my wits end worrying, forcing myself to attend in the hopes I'd have a good time and catch at least a few days break from it all. I got there only to realize I was feeling even worse than had I stayed home. Now I had to endure meeting new people, being uncomfortable with it and all that entails and I was pretty much set to just go get my luggage, hop in the car and drive home. Terry was one of the first people I met there and he was so easy to chat with and made me feel very welcome and I ended up staying. We chatted off and on throughout, on the chairs in the lobby or out front having a smoke. I cant say enough about him. We'd kept in touch on the phone since, yakking about this or that going on in our lives and he was always genuinely concerned I believe about how I was making out as things here at home kept getting progressively worse. He called one time I wasn't home and Larry answered the call not really knowing who the hell he was but they ended up having a conversation. He said to me.. Your friend Terry in Florida phoned and he sounds like a really nice guy and he wants to know when are we coming down to Florida. That in itself is a testament about how wonderful a man he was.
You only get a few real friends in your lifetime so my grandma used to say, he was certainly one of mine and many many others here and no doubt in his separate life outside of the vac/washer world so he was indeed one of those rare exceptions to the rule. Always a friend, never an acquaintance.
