Joe Comer is a retired AF guy, vietnam vet, and A/G preacher. He's also a ham radio operator, and spent a few weeks in MS last summer helping with the aftermath of Katrina. He loves to fly (has his own small plane), and loves to share his thoughts on the internet. That's how I met him. He was a regular contributor to a milblog I'm part of, The Daily Brief .
It was thanks to a post on TDB that I learned of his current precarious status. My friend Joe had a stroke, and is in hospice care. My immediate response was tears, and a prayer for his family.
For all that he's a crusty old country boy, Joe has a heart of gold, and one of the sweetest emails I've ever gotten in my life was from him last spring/summer, where he told me that he and his wife (Nurse Jenny, as he calls her online) considered me to be another daughter, even though we'd never met.
When I was driving back from FL last sept, we intended to meet, but he was enroute to Atlanta to buy more ham radio equipment the day I passed within 20 miles of his home, and we just never connected.
And now he's in hospice, which means he's just waiting to hear those magic words: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." and I find that everytime I think about it, I'm crying for the loss of a man I've never met, that I've only known as words on a computer screen, but who somehow was able to send compassion and caring across the void we call cyberspace, and touch another person's heart.
Godspeed, Joe. Vaya con Dios.
Please link your heart with mine, and say a prayer for Joe and his family, and his cyberfriends.
Thank you.
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