Fifty-one years ago, give or take, I was a naïve and clueless kid who had just begun working at Electric Boat building submarines. I entered this job after seven years in a college-prep school and was accordingly unprepared for the sudden immersion in the decidedly blue-collar world. But I met a friend, a big, tough, kind hearted brute of a guy; a guy that became my “big brother” – Larry. An unfiltered Lucky Strike smoking, whiskey loving, Viet Nam surviving Vet, crazy guy with a heart of gold. When I got married, there were six people on my side of the aisle: my grandparents, the best man’s parents, and Larry and his wife.

We got into trouble together and we looked after each other. As the facility grew in size and population, we ended up being separated into different work areas and began to see less and less of each other. In the early nineties EB was forced into a massive workforce reduction and Larry was laid off; he never returned and I lost all contact with him.

In 2015 I received a DM though LinkedIn from Larry’s wife; she had stumbled across my profile and wondered if I was the same guy that had worked with Larry. We quickly connected and Larry and spoke with each other on the phone for the first time in almost 15 years. Since, we have texted each other pretty much every day, even if just to say “good morning”. We’d miss a day here or there but it became a ritual. Over the last year or so, I’d run into stretches of several days of silence from Larry and then finally here from him that he was in the hospital. This happened more and more often over the last couple of months including a few days just this week. I finally contacted his son who told me Larry had been declining and he was headed over to check up on him. I heard from Larry the next day and texted that he was back in the hospital but was hoping to get out soon.

Yesterday my phone rang – it was Larry. He told me he was home and talked about why he kept ending up in the hospital: his meds made him dizzy and he would fall, hit his head, and have to go in to be checked. We had a long conversation and made plans to go out for breakfast once he was back on his feet.

His son messaged me this morning. Larry died last night.

We had not talked on the phone in years – just not what we did – we texted. But I didn’t think much of it when he called, just assumed he glad to be back home again. I have to believe that somehow, we knew. He never let on, but I think he knew. I will miss him.