#MyFunnelVision-Profile: Rick Elder

This is the final installment of #myfunnelvision profile for Rick Elder. I’ve already spoken about Friendship and Forgiveness, but I have one last F-Bomb to drop and that is Faith.

Best intentions sometimes go to waste. After Rick and I had reconciled, I bumped into him as I was leaving a local watering hole. We each said the obligatory “Hey, let’s get together and catch up!” but it never materialized. It was later that year that I finally saw Rick and the occasion was not ceremonious.

I’m not a Facebook-Guy, but Lisa is friends with Tonya on Facebook and she read a post from Tonya stating Rick had suffered a stroke on Thanksgiving in 2016. Rick is 48 at the time. To complicate matters, Rick suffered a second stroke while he is in the hospital. Patients suffering a second stroke have a survival rate of 20%. The cherry on top comes when Rick falls in the bathroom at the hospital hitting his head causing a brain bleed.

I went to the hospital to see my brother. I didn’t know what to expect and was surprised when I received such a warming welcome from Rick’s new wife, Karen. Rick’s face lit up and I could genuinely tell he was truly happy to see me. Karen was so glad to finally meet me and said that Rick always talked about the great times that he and I shared with neighbors whether it was BBQ’s, golf outings or 4th of July parties.

Rick had made a lot of friends over the years whether they were customers or local dignitaries in the county who Rick had helped by using his pull as the local beer distributor. There were numerous Get-Well cards and banners decorating his room in the hospital. The staff told me Rick had a tough time resting because he had so many visitors throughout the day.

It was very tough for me to work up the courage to go visit Rick that first time in the hospital. I belong to a Saturday morning prayer group, Men of St. Joseph, and I remember specifically making a prayer request for God to take Rick because the odds were against him. I wasn’t strong enough and didn’t realize God has other plans for Rick Elder. Fortunately, God didn’t answer my prayers and Rick is truly stronger than me. He joked that God couldn’t handle having his dad and brother in Heaven and needed Rick to stay here for now!

When I would visit Rick in the different hospitals that took care of him, I tried to share my Catholic Faith with him and he enjoyed it. I gave Rick a Rosary Ring and encouraged him to pray often to God. When he came home, I invited him to come join me for our Saturday morning meetings with The Men of St. Joseph and he has been a regular ever since.

Rick has touched the lives of the members of Men of St. Joseph. Each week we ask God for intentions for friends and loved ones and not once has Rick ever asked anything for himself, only those people he knows that need God’s help. The running joke between Rick and I is that earlier in our lives we would be going to bed at 6:30 on a Saturday morning after a heavy night of partying and now here we are going to a prayer group instead. Who’d a thunk it?

I had said earlier in another posting there was something that Rick coveted that I, myself, already enjoyed, and that is children. Karen has two children from previous marriages and Rick has accepted them as his own. It’s tough enough to be a step-dad. Imagine trying to be a step-dad who has to rely on a wheel chair to get around. To hear him talk about trying to be a good father to these kids is something special. He’s working on it. Maybe that’s why God has kept him around.

This may sound judgmental, I know that I am not perfect and I am not always there for Rick, but I find it strange that now that Rick is figuring out a new normal for himself in being restricted physically from doing the things he enjoyed in the past, that all of those people who hit him up for favors have seemed to fade away. The recent Coronavirus scare gave me some insight as to what Rick deals with on a daily basis being stuck at home and not be able to do the things you typically enjoy.

Rick Elder may be limited physically, but he’s still the same Rick Elder on the inside, that caring side, and that’s what counts the most. Often Rick tells me how people still seek his advice. Rick has said that God has a plan for him and maybe that plan to is to better practice his Faith and share it with others.

In case you missed them and wanted to know the whole story, here are the first two segments that I wrote about my friend, Rick Elder.

I am going to depart from my normal format in presenting this next profile, so please bear with me. I am going to tell the story of a friend who has shaped my life in so many different ways that I feel it is necessary to share important aspects of our relationship. Fair warning, I will be using the F-word quite a bit in this profile, but in different variations. 

I first met Rick Elder in January of 1993 after my wife, Lisa, and I moved into our newly built home. It was snowing and I am outside shoveling the driveway. There weren’t many homes built in the subdivision at that time. A younger man came out of his house to shovel his driveway as well. We both were cordial and said hello and before you know it, we were talking in the middle of street getting to know each other. As I said, it was snowing and it was coming down pretty heavy. I noticed a van struggling to make it up the hill. I told my new neighbor that I was going to go see if I could help. Rick joined me. We succeeded in helping the driver up the hill, but more importantly, we succeeded in forging a new friendship.

There are so many stories to tell, so many great memories, but it always comes back to friendship and being good to one another. You have to understand something about my situation back then. I was in a different place in my way of doing things. I always had to be the center of attention and I was ALWAYS right even when I was wrong and I would ALWAYS defend my position no matter what it cost me.

There was something different about Rick. He could be just as bull-headed as me, but there was a softer side, a caring side. I got to know his family and soon began to feel a part of it. I remember hearing his nephews refer to him as Uncle Ricky and the moniker stuck. Soon, my own two kids were referring to him as Uncle Ricky.

It seemed that we were always there for one another and enjoyed each other’s company. Rick and his wife, Chris, were the closest friends that Lisa and ever had as a couple. So much so, that we wanted Rick and Chris to be legal guardians for our kids if something ever happened to us.

Life isn’t easy. No one ever makes it out alive. We all make mistakes. Unfortunately, Rick made his own and it cost him dearly. He was financially strapped and needed a job. Lisa’s company needed part-time help merchandising in grocery stores and she taught him the ins-and-outs of building displays in a store. Rick went on to land a job as a truck driver for a local beer distributor. He soon was given small C-stores as accounts and grew the sales by taking what he learned from Lisa. They promoted Rick to a sales rep and within a year, he was their top salesman. He caught the attention of the local St. Louis brewery distributor, and they interviewed him for a sales rep position. They didn’t hire him because he didn’t have a college degree. This didn’t anger Rick. It motivated him and he made it a point to the eat the competition’s lunch in all of his accounts. Finally, this King of Beers came to their senses and hired Rick as a sales rep. He soon would go on to become their Director of Sales.

Friendship is an important aspect of our existence. There are so many people who have touched our lives, even for just a scant second, yet they leave an indelible mark upon our souls. I wish I could say this was the end of the story and that we all lived happily ever after, but as I said, life isn’t easy.

So, this is what they refer to as a teaser. In the next installment in Rick Elder’s profile, which I will post soon, I will be sure to drop another F-bomb. Stay tuned…

This is the second installment of my profile featuring Rick Elder. If you missed the first, I suggest you check out my LinkedIn page so you can view the first which will provide context.

Life goes on and things change. My friend, Rick Elder, had appeared to turn his life around after being almost destitute. He and his wife, Chris, had built another new home and Rick was flourishing in his role as a sales manager for the local beer distributor. I will be brutally honest. I was envious of Rick. His job offered quite a few perks that I was not privy to, primo tickets for sporting events. meeting celebrities and going on nice vacations, but there was something I knew that I had that Rick coveted and that was children. Rick and Chris tried to have kids, but it never worked out and maybe that was a good thing.

As the years went on, the distance between us was more noticeable and not because he lived more than ten miles away as opposed to across the street. We weren’t staying in touch and maybe I was to blame just as much as Rick. As fate would have it, Rick’s father-in-law lived in the subdivision next to mine and I was always cordial with him and I would stop by from time to time to say hello. It had been a while since I spoke to Rick and when his father-in-law told me that Rick and Chris were getting a divorce, I was shocked. I also learned things about Rick that I wish I never would have known. 

After breaking the news to my wife, Lisa, I immediately reached out to Rick in an effort to help him salvage his marriage. When I spoke to Rick, he wouldn’t even mention the fact that he was divorcing his wife and I knew that was a bad sign. I tried to convince him to make it work with Chris, but his mind was already made up. As I had said previously, Rick could be bull-headed and he wasn’t going to change. I knew immediately that my family was on Team Chris. What surprised me is the fact that Rick’s family was as well.

Some time had passed since I had seen Rick and it was unfortunate that the next time I would see him was at his dad’s funeral. When I got to the funeral home, I saw Rick’s sister, Tonya, who came up to me and told me how much her father loved me. We spoke about the fond memories we had and then Rick approached. I made it a point to turn my back on him as I squeezed between him and Tonya and I proceeded to the casket to say a prayer for Mr. Elder. After paying my respect, I spotted Rick’s older brother, Scott.  We had a brief conversation at which point Rick again approached me and squared up in front of me standing toe to toe. He thanked me for coming. I wouldn’t make eye contact with him and I responded “Whatever.” Needless to say, things got dicey and nearly came to blows as Scott had to step in between us to break us up.

The Pain Train continued for Rick as a short time later Scott had developed cancer and was not long for this world. Fortunately for me, my Catholic Faith was on the rebound. I saw Scott before he passed and I led a Holy Rosary prayer with Tonya and her husband, James, at Scott’s bedside. Rick called to thank me. I went to pay my respect to Scott at the funeral home and this time when Rick and I saw each other instead of “dropping ‘em and having a go” we had a long, rocking embrace like two long lost brothers which is what we were.

Forgiveness. We didn’t say a word, but then again, we didn’t have to. Chris had moved on with her life and unbeknownst to me she and Rick stayed in contact. It appeared that Chris realized that life does indeed go on and she found someone new to fill the void in her life. Fortunately for Rick, he also found someone to help fill the void and he would desperately need it as well.