Sorry…

Sorry!  I have been a bad blogger this week!! For the first time in a long time, my calendar was pretty free this week and I was planning on taking advantage of my free time and playing catch up around the house.

On Monday right as I was about to head to class, I got a phone call from a friend telling me that the father of one of our mutual friends, Lauren, had passed away.  Now, I would be sad for anyone of my friends to lose their father, but this case it was especially hard because I was close to him as well.

You see, my friend Lauren and I met during our Freshman year when we were both on the Avanti Orientation Team.  We became fast friends and spent a great deal of time together.  Lauren was originally from Brentwood and her family was pretty well off.  However, they were the sweetest and most welcoming family I have ever met as they have always adopted all of the “friends” into their family.

Sophomore year, Alabama went to play in the Music City Bowl in Nashville and since Lauren lived close by, she invited us to their New Year’s Eve party after the game. 

The party was fabulous and I had the opportunity to meet her parents, Mrs. Sherri and Hoff-rock (long story behind the name, but that’s what he was known as).  This family LOVES to party and have fun and I will always have fond memories of Hoff-rock belting out a tune on the karaoke machine (which was a routine thing for him). 

They were the perfect host and hostess and invited me back on many occasions and although I didn’t get to see them again until a few year’s later when Lauren got married, they greeted me like they had seen me the day before.

When I heard the news that he had passed away, I was shocked.  He was only 54 and in the best shape of his life and they still weren’t quite sure what happened to him.  I was devastated to hear that the world lost such a wonderful man, but even more so that Lauren lost her father because I cannot imagine losing mine. 

Crystal and I immediately started making plans to head to Nashville the following day for visitation and the funeral.  Although I NEVER do anything spontaneous, I never thought twice about not going. I quickly threw a bag together and headed off bright and early the next morning to meet Crystal at her home in Birmingham to head toward Nashville.

The drive was absolutely beautiful and Crystal and I discussed how much we wished this was just a trip to visit La, but we couldn’t help but think of the reason of our visit.  We tried to think of all the fond memories we had of him to try to counteract our grief.

As much as I loved seeing Lauren and her family, I HATED seeing them under these circumstances.  Just seeing them sad (because they were always the fun-loving family) just broke my heart and we all shared hugs and lots of tears.

After visitation, Mrs. Sherri had everyone over to her house and it was the traditional Hoffman party (without Hoff-rock of course :( )  Everyone was laughing and joking around sharing the fun memories of the Hoffman parties and Mrs. Sherri kept saying “This is the way Bill would have wanted it”…everyone laughing and having a great time. 

The funeral was beautiful and the perfect representation of Hoff-rock.  The massive turnout alone was a true testament to how well liked this man was.  We all sang beautiful songs (because he LOVED music), laughed (because everyone had a funny story about Hoff-rock), and cried (because the world just lost a wonderful man). 

We got home Wednesday evening I’ve had to scramble to play catch up on some stuff (but I wouldn’t have missed going to the funeral for anything).  Since I’m finally caught up and can post about this without breaking into tears, I wanted to share.

Please keep the Hoffman family in your prayers as they mourn this terrible loss.