One of the things about aging that really sucks is losing people. Deep down we know that we will lose elderly relatives. We'll become orphans at some point...better in later life than earlier.
What we don't think about is losing people we played with, went to school with, worked with--people we saw day in and day out sometimes over the years.
Lately I've been thinking about one of those people whom I've lost Bill Venter.
When I went to work at Polaroid Credit Union as a PR Director, I decided to try all the vendors my predecessor Muffy Wheeler had used. I knew my vendors at the National Fire Protection Association were being taken care of by my successor. Why should any of these people lose work they had performed well just because of a management change.
Little did I know, I not only gained a talented artist, a creative support but a friendship that would last decades. What a joy to work on projects together. I'd introduce a concept, think of it is as a hum. He would add a melody. I'd tweak it. By the time we finished we had an opera that produced results.
Bill's studio was a few blocks from Polaroid's office and I would walk down past the Necco factory with the caramel smells whetting my appetite. Bill and I would go to lunch together in Central Square, Cambridge.
Part of the lunch hour was already taken with the search for Bill's keys. I ended up buying him a key ring that would beep when we clapped. It also beeped when it heard a laugh.
The other part was sharing everything from Larry Bird's performance the night before, to Bill's experiences coaching Pop Warner football. We talked about politics, our fears, our joys, our children.
When I changed jobs to help start a credit union for Digital Equipment Corporation, my office was an hour's drive into the country. It made sense that Bill stop at my home in Boston on his way home saving him a good two hours of drive time.
In the beginning I was living with two roommates and my daughter on Wigglesworth Street in Boston. One night when Bill stopped with finished artwork was the same night as they showed the last episode of M.A.S.H. We had converted the library into a M.A.S.H. set. We were eating a meal out of army-type dishes.
Another time we invited him to dinner for Shepherd's Pie. About five minutes into the meal, we realized, we'd forgotten the meat.
I moved to a condo on The Riverway, still on his way home. I have so many memories of Pumpkin, Llara's one-woman cat, shifting her passion to Bill. She thought he brought his lap just for her. If his lap wasn't available the cat would stretch out on anything he touched, papers, a jacket, a hat.
One night, I watched Bill and my daughter put together the stand for my new microwave. If videoed, it would have made a great sitcom episode, but we were able to use the microwave on its stand to share a hot chocolate to celebrate their victory.
My coat closet door was next to my front door. They were identical. There was the night that we were talking as he was leaving and he enter the coat closet closing the door after him. I wish I had a recording of the conversation before he came out.
After I moved to Europe, I never went back to Boston that we didn't get together. He was one of those friends that if you don't see for months, when you do see one another, it was like he just stepped out for a cup of coffee.
When I married and my husband and I were in Boston I wanted them to meet. Bill said he had to vet Rick. Fortunately the two men liked each other.
We communicated on Facebook.
His death was a shock. A smell of caramel and I will picture the walk to Central Square past the NECCO factory. A cup of hot chocolate or my microwave pinging, and I will think of the night he and Llara put the stand together. There are so many triggers when he pops into my mind.
What the loss reminds me of is that at this minute and every time when I sit down with people I care about, I have them now. I will not always be so lucky thus I should savor that moment. I also remind myself how lucky I have had the Bill Venters of the world in my life.
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