For HC

I found out this week that I lost a dear friend. His name was Houston Clinton Gilbert. I knew him as HC.

I taught HC about our church when I was a missionary in 1997. He was baptized six months after I met him, at age 81. He was a great member of the church -- always on time for his calling as usher/printed-program manager. He loved BYU television and General Conference. He felt he had a lot in common with President Hinckley, for some reason -- and liked to watch Pres. Hinckley wave his cane around during conference. HC was a great home teacher, from what I heard. He also loved going to the temple, and enjoyed feeding the elders for years.

To me, he was a good friend, someone I felt close to as a missionary, when my all family was far away. He would occasionally meet my companion and me for lunch, or send a card with a bit of extra cash (let's face it, missionary support fund isn't that much to live on), just because he was thoughtful. As I was leaving my mission, he gave me and my family a big box of tangerines off his trees -- the BEST tangerines I've EVER tasted, I'm sure. After my mission, we stayed in touch. He came to visit me in Idaho and stayed with our family for Thanksgiving one winter. I went to visit him a few times, and we sent letters and cards back and forth. He even met Brian, way back in Round 1 of dating. (Tried to warn me to stay away from anyone who speaks Arabic. ha! Obviously I didn't listen.)

With all my moving around, we managed to keep up with regular phone calls every month or so. Even after I got married and moved to London, we weren't quite so regular, but still kept in touch fairly often. We talked politics a lot, and he told me about his wife, Lula, who passed away of Alzheimer's disease just a couple of years before I met him. She loved elephants, and had a collection of elephant figurines in their home, stacked on shelves all around their living room. He told me stories from his time in China during World War II. And he told me about his son and grandson, and later his great-grandson and great-granddaughter, who are the same ages as my kids.

I loved HC, and learned a lot from him. I miss him.

Sadly, he passed away in May, several months ago. I know. I'm especially sad and embarrassed that I didn't know until now. I knew it would be this way -- that he would be gone and I wouldn't know. I asked him once how I would ever know if something happened to him -- a hospital stay, an illness, etc. He shrugged it off, and I just knew that when he died, it would happen like this. But it still makes me feel so terrible that I didn't know for such a long time. The last time I talked to him was in March, right before we moved. I told him we'd keep our same number, and that he could still reach us same as always, but I could tell he was confused.

I kept meaning to call him all summer long -- got out the address book a few different times, but wanted to "wait till the kids were in bed," or "wait till I finished this project," or "after dinner." ... So, I finally called this week to wish him a happy birthday (he would have been 95 on October 15). His son answered the phone and told me HC had died of congestive heart failure on May 24. We had a long talk, both of us cried and talked about what good man HC was. His son said he would have called me, but HC didn't leave any kind of list for him, as I suspected.

Now I'm just left with that hollow space in my heart for a dear friend. I hope he is at peace, with his dear wife. I'm feeling an urgency now, to stay closer to so many people who make -- and/or have made -- my life meaningful. Life is short, and so many people mean so much to me. HC was one of them. A good man, a good friend.