Goodnight...To A Giant Of A Man, Mentor, And Friend

 "Elder Taylor."

I was already excited about the prospects. I'd waited a long time to find out where I would be assigned.

"You've been assigned to the Glostrup area--it's in København--and your companion will be Elder Richardson."

The name meant nothing, nor did the location. I knew as much about Glostrup as I did about quantum physics.

Then they added, "Ældste Richardson...han er dyktig at sproget."

That's all I needed to hear. Even my limited command of the Danish language told me that my companion--my trainer--was good at the language. I hoped I'd be paired with someone who would help me improve my Danish.

Turns out I learned a lot more than how to improve my second language from the Ed Richardson.

On Monday, I read a post on Facebook from Ed...he was in the hospital and it was serious. Yesterday I woke to the news that he passed away.

Elder Richardson and I spent two month together, biking and walking the streets of Copenhagen's western suburb. He taught me what it was like being a missionary in Denmark.  I learned that even though we were yelled at, flipped off, spit on, that the Danes were "not" those people. That they were loving, warm, intelligent, and some even wanted to hear what we had to say. We must have looked strange--Ed, a big guy, tall and wide, and me, a scrawny 120 lb kid who looked fifteen-years old. I first met Ed in the spring of 1985...thirty-six years ago. Since that time, I never considered Ed not a friend.

Of course, as lives to, I had little interaction with Ed since. We both began our lives, married, became fathers, and fathers-in-law. We both had struggles and triumphs, victories and defeats.

When someone you know--someone who had a large impact on your life--passes away, a light goes out and you feel it, even though we hardly saw each other in those thirty-six years. When I saw Ed's post of his hospitalization earlier this week, I prayed things would turn out differently. I hoped his constitution would match his personality and rise above. Unfortunately, it was not to be.

Several of those I knew in that distant land decades ago have died. As I search the old pictures, I was reminded of just how many. Now Ed resides in that column, a column we'll all one day join.

Goodnight, Elder Richardson. Tak for alt.