[Jeff Higgins]

I'm not even sure where to begin. The title says it all. I've been kind of rattling around for the last day or so in stunned disbelief. Dave was my "brother of another mother". We first met at Boeing almost 30 years ago where we were working as tooling engineers. Me mechanical, Dave electrical, working on some equipment for the Interiors Division, right before I left it for AOG. We hit it off immediately, sharing similar backgrounds, having both lost our fathers at 18 years of age, leaving school in a haphazard daze to try to make some sense of things, getting married and subsequently finishing school, etc. I introduced him to Porsches one day giving him a lift home from work in my '72 which was my daily driver at the time.

I have felt closer to Dave than to my own two brothers at times over the last 30 years. Dave had a heart of gold, was always quick with a smile, and always saw life as "one big ocean to swim in". Dave was a certified Master Diver, even working as an instructor during the dive season in Belize at times. Just so full of life in so many ways.

As he mentioned here, Dave and his wife of 30+ years separated last year. She still cared a great deal for Dave, it was her that contacted me to let me know he had passed. She is just numb, even more so than I am, of course. We were both starting to wonder why we had not heard from Dave since Christmas, when we both wished him a "merry" one. Turns out Dave had died just a couple of days after Christmas. He lived on a secluded five acres in the woods ("the ranch" as he liked to call it), and one of the neighbors started to wonder why he wasn't seeing Dave go by on their shared private road. Turns out he had slipped in the shower and smacked his head.

My God. Dave, as I said, was a Master Diver. Beyond that, he had earned his certification for some of the most dangerous diving in the world, into the underground caves of Mexico, in the Bahamas, and in the Dominican Republic. He had skydived, he was an avid track day participant in both his Cayman and his 996C4S, was a respected expert in the modified side by side quad world where he was published in several enthusiast magazines, and was an avid participant in any number of what some might consider to be "risky" pursuits.

And he fell in the god damned shower. I'm still getting my head around that. Not sure I ever will. As a lover of irony, however, Dave probably wouldn't have had it any other way. RIP, my "Bother of another Mother".