shock {february 12, 2022}

Today we got the news that a dear friend died from a catastrophic stroke. Shock. Total shock.

Bobby O was a New York boy raised in Hell's Kitchen back when it was a tough neighborhood. He and T met in 1984 through their respective businesses. T was in mortgage banking, Bob worked for a trading desk in NYC. T's company was a customer of Bob's. The two became good friends.

I've always loved New York City. Once a year we would go there for the Secondary Mortgage Conference and even though Bob was busy meeting with his various customers, he would make time to show me his city through his eyes. Back in 2011, he showed me the High Line when it was in its beginning stages and just 8 blocks long. I have watched the High Line grow and change throughout the years. He took me to Red Hook to get the best key lime pie in NYC at Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pies. One year his wife told him to get cookies for Easter dinner so he took me along to Artopolis in Astoria to a wonderful bakery to get an array of Greek cookies. Then there were egg cremes from Ray's. He told me to walk around the city as much as I could to get views of sculptures, murals, fountains, beautiful architecture, sit in the parks. "You'll become part of the city, the city will become part of you."

Fleet Week. Bob's son was in the Navy and through his son, Bob got access to ships that weren't available for the general public. The most memorable ship was the USS New York, a warship built out of the Twin Tower's wreckage. "Strength forged through sacrifice. Never forget."

We took the train from Grand Central Terminal to the New York Botanical Gardens to spend the day with Bob and his wife. Bob sent New York Times articles to me about places that we should put on our list of things to see the next time we would come to New York.

T and I were making plans to go to New York in May and we had planned to get together with Bob and his wife. May 2022 marks three years that have passed since we have been to NYC. We were so looking forward to saying hello to Bobby O but instead, in three days we will be going back to say good-bye.