Monday, April 14, 2008
An Epic Loss
All day, I have been looking forward to posting here about our fantastic weekend, but then, we received a phone call tonight from our mechanic, Gary Semone's, wife informing us that Gary suffered a ruptured brain aneurism yesterday and died. What loss and tragedy!!!! This man is my automotive lifeline. In fact, I tried calling him yesterday when I was having problems with the church vehicle down in Charlotte, and thought it very strange that he didn't answer the phone on a Saturday afternoon. I could call him from anywhere on the road with a problem, and he would always tell me what was wrong and what to do. One Christmas, years ago, we were trying to leave early in the morning to get to the beach, and the gear shift got stuck in park. He came over to our house at 7 am on Christmas to get us on the road!! He (and his twin brother, Larry who died a couple of years ago) have totally enabled our lifestyle of driving ridiculously old beaters long past their natural, useful life. Once he even bought an old Corolla on an auction so he would have useful parts readily available for the chariot of fun-ness (our 84 Corolla that is still on the road!) He nursed 305 thousand miles out of the old party wagon (our 90 chevy van). Can you imagine how valuable it has been to have a mechanic whose skill and business ethic you trusted absolutely, and completely? I have always said that Gary would be the only reason I would stay in Galax if something ever happened to David, because I don't think I could bear to search for a trustworthy mechanic anywhere else. Oh, Lordy, Lordy, what will we do now???
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4 comments:
I am so sorry for your loss. I hope your bell ringers performances will compensate! Mary
Thanks , Mary for the kind thoughts. There will be no shortage of opportunities for the bell ringers to compensate with 7 more performances coming up this spring, but I'm afraid that none of them know how to keep a car running.
i am sorry for the loss, but cannot help think your concern was more for who will repair your vehicles than for the family of the deceased gentleman. i hope this is not how you meant the notice to sound but i did seem that way to me. my sympathy to the family not your cars. betsy
Dear Betsy,
Thank you for bringing your concerns to my attention. I most certainly did not mean to minimize the devastating grief of this family. Our community has lost a generous, kind, honest, and humble businessman; and it is those qualities that I wished to illustrate by sharing some our experiences. And yes, my family, as well as many others who were his loyal customers, do feel the pain and helplessness that his death brings, too.
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