The loss of a GREAT friend - I will be forever changed

Losing friends is never easy, they are terribly missed and the closer the relationship the more painful the loss. I recently lost one of my closest friends, we have been friends as long as I have been an adult. It has been so bad that I have had terrible headaches since the loss. I miss him and I miss everything he represented, to me and to others. He was widely known and much respected. I am not sure if I will be able to adjust my life to work without him in it, that is how important he was to me. I have cried until my eyes were swollen shut and the hole in heart is still there. The hurt is literally tangible, my body hurts because of my loss.

So who this friend I lost, who was he really? He was born in 1959, one year after the Jalopy was built. He lived a full life and brought joy to millions, yes millions of people and yet he was accessible to normal folk, just like me. He and I had become closer than ever in recent years and he was very good to and for me. He helped me get through every day, sometimes it seemed like that help was…. insignificant. That was until he was no longer around to offer support to me. The fact that he was an inspiration to me every day was sometimes taken for granted, I am so sorry that was how I felt some days because now, well now I feel hollow and not at all myself without him in my life.

I scanned back through my blogs to see how often I mentioned his name and was shocked by the results, I have mentioned him in 46 different blogs, and I have only written 211 of them. I scanned back through the 46 and found that I never had a cross word to say about him, not one. But alas, I guess everyone has their day and their time in the sun and his time was up, sad as it was that is the reality of the situation. He had the greatest pet in the world as well, Conchita was the most loyal animal a man could ask for. Conchita did not make it through either, I am almost equally saddened by that, I will miss that mule.

My friend’s name, Juan Valdez and his pet, Conchita the mule, that carried the bags of coffee beans. Yep, I have given up coffee! I am saddened and all that I said earlier is true, the lack of caffeine is giving me a killer headache since I quit. What has brought me to this lowly fate, a couple of reasons really. If you read regularly you know that I have recently started examining myself against the 13 virtues that Ben Franklin created and judged himself against for most of his life. I have been looking at Temperance first and it is eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation. Since I do not drink I decided to look at my coffee intake, which was substantial. Basically over a half a gallon a day with nearly 1000 calories in flavored coffee creamers.

So I was looking at that when Bride got some news from the Doc’s that she needed to remove caffeine from her world. So after that I thought I would, in an act of solidarity, join her in giving it up. Caffeine is HORRIBLY rough on the lining of the stomach and even though i was not having issues – Bride was so I thought I would join her. She is continuing with decaffeinated but my thinking is why bother to drink hot brown water if it does not contain the nectar of the gods? Not worth it to me so I decided to just quit, cold turkey and it has been rough.

So back to the virtues of Ben Franklin I decided to go look a bit at number 5, frugality. Now I get that coffee every day from the Gate station, there were many reasons but I very rarely ever made it at home. We also use Quicken on the computer for our banking, it ties right in and synchronizes up with our bank. Since we enter our receipts religiously and do so with as much detail as possible I was able perform a detailed report. That lead me to make the fateful decision to pull up all the times I bought coffee at gate with my debit card, which would be close as I rarely carry cash. So a couple of clicks and that was the cold, stark reality of my coffee consumption. I was SHOCKED at the amount, in the last 12 months alone I have spent $757.89, on coffee. HOLY COW I thought and wondered why I have never looked at that cost before. I am so glad I only queried the last 12 months and not the last 10 years, yes I keep those banking files in perpetuity sorted by calendar year.

So the bottom line is that while I was working on Temperance and with Brides news to cut caffeine out I was able to make a positive change in my life and make progress on two virtues, Temperance and Frugality. For some reason it does not seem to positive a change yet, I am hopeful that when the headaches subside I will be able to realize the positives of this change. I do not have to worry about it eroding my stomach lining to the point that I start having problems and I will be able to save 750 bucks a year – BONUS. I am now wondering what to do with all the free coffee cards I have saved up. I suppose I will go to gate and break the news to my friends who work there and give them the cards to hand out as they deem fit.

Juan Valdez, Conchita – I will miss you more than I can describe and I will always love you but you are dead to me now!