Another Loss

Yes, I have had yet another death in the family.  A long term friend, a man I did admire and counted as family.

August Soler was old Swiss.  He lived his life through his work, which was pretty much 24x7 it seemed to me.  I only lured him off the farm once for a visit at my house, else it was always off to his place for national holidays, parties and of course the mandatory shooting in his fields - butted right up to cliffs as a backdrop!

He counted himself as nothing, he had lost a leg at age 11 - to a piece of farm equipment and it devastated him mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  All there was for him was the family farm and he diligently worked it.  His ancestors had nothing to complain at, probably cheered him on the way he fought with the bureaucrats.

And he was not a Christian.  I witnessed to him, his son-in-law the same.  His wife, a Catholic, more than once hauled him to mass.  But, he would have none of it.  He had already tasted God's judgement he believed.

And so it is with tremendous sadness I note not the passing of a friend but the loss of friend, to an eternity where I will not be.

It crushes me, as did my own father's death and for the same reasons.

Farewell Gus, you are remembered and now an example for my Sunday School class of the frailty of life.

Auf Wiederluege, August.....