WyzWmn's World©

A year ago I introduced my best male friend to my best female friend (you may remember my story from May when he proposed to her in front of 30-50 bikers at a riding club event?)

Bee and Bryan just got home from 8 weeks of holidaying around the continent culminating in a mad dash from Sturgis to get here in time for our bro?s funeral (actually she flew from Rapid City to Kelowna a week ago to assist an ailing friend and he rode like snot to get home in time…but I digress)

So I go up there to Naniamo yesterday to prepare for the funeral and wake…Bee n Bryan say they’ve brought me a surprise from Rapid City…

They present me with a helmet sticker that says “if I have to understand don’t bother to explain it”

I say “thank you very much for thinking of me on your holiday”…

Then they say they have something else for me…
And they give me a helmet sticker that says “When I woke up this morning I had one nerve left and You’re getting on it”

I say again, “thank you very much for thinking of me on your holiday”…

They then say they have something else for me…And they give me another helmet sticker that says “I’m not a bitch…I’ve just been in a bad mood for the last couple of years!”

I laugh again and again I say… “once again, thank you so much for thinking of me on your holiday”…

They tell me once more that they have something else for me…and they give me a Sturgis T-shirt?”

Way Cool !” says I, “I can’t believe you guys took the time to like shop for me while you were on the holiday of a lifetime…thanks.”

Bryan gets this funny grin on his face and disappears into the bedroom. He reappears and places on the table in front of me a new fender for my Pickle!

I am flabbergasted. (I haven’t had a front fender on my trike for 2 years and I live in the bloody rain forest!)
I don’t know what to say…can you imagine 2 people going on the triking trip of a lifetime and hauling a freakin fender alla way back for a friend?

I jump up and give them both a hug.

We sit back down and I am examining said fender and I proclaim “look at all the shiny chrome bolts…me likes shiny”. (the Pickle is currently a rust bucket) To which Bryan answers”oh…I have other bolts to go with that…come ‘eer”

He grabs me by the hand an waltzes me across the living room to the front hall where he pulls a jacket off a shiny new set of springer forks and leans over and points at the big bolts in the bottom “see? ” he says, “more shiny bolts for Wyz”

I look at him and then I turn and look at her…and they are both grinning like Cheshire cats….so I did what any other red blooded biker would do…I burst into tears!

Bryan then goes on to tell me that they bought them for me because they want me to be safe and that my old forks are soo distressed that he’s worried I’m gonna end up killing myself and he adds that if it wasn’t for me he’d have never found the love of his life….so it’s important to both of them that I’m safe.

To which I answer with a little hysterical sobbing and completely obliterate the part where he tells me that there’s also handle bars, grips and cables coming directly from the shop that originally built my trike some 30 years ago! I gotta tell ya…I was a bloody write off.

A large bald mass of sniveling pulp…with red eyes.

So now we’re gonna have a forkin’ party…and I’m gonna get forked…!

whoooooooo hooooooooo!

Shocked is not the word. Numb better describes how I feel at the moment. I can hardly believe it.

I am here, speaking to you today in loving memory of Eric, “Lucky” Eric the Viking, Father, Son, Brother, Husband, Lover.

Eric who with all the love in his great big heart lived life to the fullest. He rode his bike and rode it often, in good times or bad. It was his life….the only thing that meant more to him was his family.

Our brother Lucky created his own light.

The glory of being a human being is that we are capable of being so much to so many. His children knew him as their father. His parents knew them as their son. Jill knew him as the reason for loving. We knew him as our friend and brother.

He was so much to so many and now he has gone on.

As eloquently said by a friend of the road… “Our community lost an icon the day Eric finally took a rest.” He was and is so loved and missed by his beautiful wife Jill and their children, by his SCRC family and by his innumerable brothers and sisters of the road.”

Eric had a zest for life that was second to none…we all knew Eric was never one to color between the lines. He rode hard and he loved hard.

Jill, I know you know this, but it needs to be said out loud. Eric thought the sun rose and set on you. You are “why he’s lucky”. I once asked Eric what he was most proud of in his life and he turned and pointed to you and your children.

Eric lived his life ever mindful of the biker’s mantra…”Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming — WOW– What a Ride!!!”

When I sat down to write this eulogy I first thought to myself that this is not the job for me. Better suited would be a family member or someone that new him longer or better than I.

I thought, if it were up to me I’d lead off with something by Frank Zappa and immediately thereafter thought that it might not be proper for a funeral, and then again thought “it might be the most proper after all, my friend Eric didn’t hold too much for propriety.

Then I thought, “If Eric is right and I am wrong…I’ll find him somewhere in heaven, and I’ll wag my finger at him and he’ll go ‘neener, neener, neener.’”

Eulogies tend to paint the deceased as a saint, but not here. Nobody should pull their punches. Eric wasn’t a saint, but we all recognize that the world is a better place because Eric passed through it.

The last time I saw Eric he was doing what he loved the most. I am so grateful that a guy like Eric comes along every now and then. I hope that as even he died fighting the demons that took his life he realized how much we loved and appreciated him.

We all know that when someone is seriously hurt or killed, life goes on. When cameras are rolling and microphones switched on, you’ll often hear quotes like “We’ve got to keep on doing whatever it is we were doing before because ‘he would have wanted it that way.'”

Sometimes you have to wonder if it’s just a pat phrase to help them get through a difficult time. Sometimes you might even wonder if it’s true.

In this case, we know this to be true. Eric would not want us to mourn too long, to weep or wail. Eric would want us to laugh and remember why he’s Lucky.

And Eric would want us to ride.

To that end we will remember Eric the man. Eric the father, Eric the husband. We will know that Eric is with us, in our memories and in our hearts and on the road. We will remember Eric as he was.

Eric, my brother, you’ve made the full circle. God and all the other Great Sprits alike have blessed you and all that loved you in your brief time with us and for that we are grateful.