He was 51. We had not been close in the past few years.
He suffered from a rare ailment called Sarcoid. It can afflict several organs of the body, but in his case, it affected his brain. It caused swelling, and subsequent issues from that. He has had it about 10 years I believe. My SIL lived with him for most of that time, but his emotions were out of control at times, and he became abusive. She eventually had to leave. They eventually divorced.
He had not been able to work for many years, had significant body edema due to drugs used to conteract the swelling of the brain. He still lived in his home, and as far as we knew, was ambulatory and relatively speaking, independent. His mother had also moved in with him, and a son. So he was well cared for in the respects where he could not function any longer [he was restricted from driving for instance].
The death was unexpected. We just got the call an hour ago. I assume he died in his sleep, but don't know for sure. He died lonely I suppose, as do most Jw's who are housebound and not much good to the sales team any more. As for our relationship, I never got a grip on that since I left the cult. He was kind of in - kind of out, I was fully out. He lived with a Jw mom. So I didn't show up more than a couple times at his house in the past few years. The boat rocked too much when I did, and I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable there. I wish now that I had acted on my impulse to stop over and say hello a few weeks back. But I didn't.
The funeral might pose interesting challenges. He was a Jw, but mostly always inactive all his life. Since the onset of his health problems he had not attended any meetings, with the possible exception of Memorial. Most likely his mother will insist on a Jw funeral, or memorial, at the KH. I will go if I can. I am hated with deadly passion there, and have vowed to never set foot in the KH again unless it is for this sort of reason. Might be interesting. His x - my wife's sister - will likely bring her fiance. She was expecting to face DF'ing when she gets married in April, but this will change that somewhat perhaps [though she could not care less one way or the other]. But her presence with her beau could be interesting.
As for me, I will likely buy a new pair of tennis shoes, and a western shirt to wear with my bluejeans. That would have made Randy smile. He would have done the same for me. I shall sit and ignore the sales pitch and recall the good times we had in the woods chasing deer or cutting wood for his fireplace.
RIP old friend.
Jeff