Jeff Handt is likely someone that you never heard of. Knowing him as well as I did, he likely would have wanted it that way. I had known him for several years, although it wasn't until 2012 that I began to develop a friendship with him.
Jeff was a regular at my church. He sang in the choir, he helped the church out with helping to get it ready to be closed after the Sunday service. He did a lot of volunteer work for the City of Tucson and he did a lot of other things that were behind the scenes. That was the way that he wanted it. He wanted no special recognition of his contributions.
As I said, we began to develop a close friendship with him. He told me that he was dying and that the doctors couldn't tell him how long he had. He had several medical issues which he related to me. I began visiting him frequently, where we would bear each other's burdens. By observing him adhering to the faith in the adverse circumstances that he faced, he bolstered my faith. The guy just wouldn't quit. He related a lot of stories to me about how, through his circumstances, he made a powerful statement to those medical professionals who cared for his needs.
Without having met Sheila at the time, he told me after the first time seeing her with me in church, that I needed to get down on my knee and propose marriage to Sheila. At that time he saw something in her that some other close friends of mine saw, who also told me that it would be good for me to make Sheila my wife, which I later on did.
When circumstances forced me into a temporary relocation to Las Vegas, I wasn't able to keep up the frequent visits with him. I know that he had a close friendship with someone else who I also became close with during that terrible summer of 2014. That friendship with that individual went back to 1968. Jeff was one to wisely maintain his friendships, something which I haven't been the greatest at doing sometimes. When I was back in Tucson, I visited him as time allowed, and my plans for this afternoon were to visit him again, upon learning that he was being transferred from hospice to an assisted living facility.
At church this morning, it was announced in prayer that he passed away this past Monday. It was all I could do to not break down in an uncontrollable release of emotion when I heard that. I did not take that very well, and I still am in a funk over this, but I know that he is in a better place right now.
Jeff Handt taught me some important things about life. No matter how bad it gets, to hang on to your faith, and keep going. He said I needed to abandon the word "hate" in my vocabulary, as that I told him I hated living in Las Vegas and that I hated that place with a passion. He didn't tell me to stop referring to it as "Trashcan", but he wanted to see me to not stated that I hated Las Vegas with a passion. He said the word "hate" is wrong, and I knew he was right, and so I try to describe my experience there as something that I disliked intensely.
He also knew about life, and what it was really all about, although his quality of life was nowhere near what most of the rest of us are accustomed to. I have become aware that the simple pleasures are important, (I learned that from one of my cats believe it or not), and he was able to enjoy those. He introduced me to the books written by Louis L'Amour, loaning me some novels, which I returned, and thus exposing me to the Western genre of novels that I came to enjoy.
With all the crap that is going on in the world......and I could write plenty about that.........the disintegration is happening all around us............I feel the need to reflect on what he taught me.
As sad as I am that I didn't get to have that one last visit with him, I have comfort in knowing that he's in a much better spot.
Until I see him again there, I'm going to miss him from time to time.
