Rest in peace, Frank.

This is my friend, Frank. He was my FHE brother at Ricks College (back when it was Ricks College). He was a fantastic friend. And a good surrogate brother for me.

He always looked right into your eyes when he was talking to you. This completely impenetrable stare. He was so, so kind. He was a caretaker. He always wanted to make sure that everyone was comfortable and happy. He was always game to do anything fun.

And he was a little mischievous. Apparently, he was on a business trip with his best friend and work associate about a year ago. They were in Florida and had like 4 hours to kill. Frank said, "Let's go to Disney World!" His friend was like, "But we only have four hours! It won't be worth all the money we pay to get in to the park!" Frank was like, "Dude, let's just do it!" So they went to Disney World. They wanted to go on all the rides they could, but they didn't have time to get those fast pass thingeys and go at the scheduled times. So...Frank decided to just go to the fast pass lines and kind of...bypass the line attendants. Somehow, he knew that the line attendants couldn't leave their "posts," so he would just RUN past them!! The first time he did this, his friend lagged behind, saying, "Frank, we don't have Fast Passes! Where are you going?" Frank yelled, "JUST KEEP RUNNING!!!" The line attendants wouldn't allow his friend in, but Frank was long gone. He met his friend at the exit of the ride, grinning from ear to ear. "I toldja," Frank said, "You just gotta keep running, dude."

His best friend wanted to run for Student Body something at Ricks. He asked Frank to be his campaign manager. Frank took this very seriously. He read through the rules for campaigning and informed his friend that he had found some "loopholes." So Frank went around Rexburg, going from business to business and asking for donations of goods or services for this campaign. No other campaign manager had thought of this, and his friend's table in the commons area was always surrounded by scores of poor college students, looking to score certificates for free smoothies, sandwiches, etc.

Another part of Frank's campaign - he would drag his friend from door to door in the women's housing to talk about his friend's platform. He said that part of his plan for his friend to win was to "Flirt to Convert." Hilarious. :)

And yes, his friend won by a landslide.

Some fun things we did as a group of friends -

We had a How to Host a Murder party my freshman year - he's in front of the window, pretending to drink beer (it was root beer), and I am crouched kind of behind him:

Here we all are at the Sand Dunes. He's in the white hoodie. I'm in the earmuffs:

Exploring some cave around Rexburg somewhere - he's in the backwards hat, and I'm in the yellow boots and red-hooded sweatshirt:

Another shot of our cave adventure:

We took pictures in front of a sheet at the end of the year - Frank is far right, and I'm just behind him, on the left:

Yes, I had big eyebrows. We've established this fact. :)

I guess he only went by the name "Frank" just while he was living in Rexburg. Some kind of phase he went through, according to his dad, whose name is Frank. Most others knew him as Brian. I'm not sure if Brian was his first name or middle name. But the other name was Frank.

A funny story - when he was there at Ricks, the internet was just kind of becoming more widespread. Some girl had just broken his heart, and he was upset. So he wrote some kind of e-mail and sent it to all of his friends, talking about how women were "the weaker sex," blah blah blah. He was mad. So that letter was out there, in cyberspace, for years. Ten years later or so, his dad's company was starting to flourish, and there were investors from all over the place looking to maybe get involved. However, one investor, upon doing research, found this old e-mail somehow. Maybe it had been posted on a web page since having been written? Who knows. So this potential investor sees this big old tirade on how Frank V. really hates women. She confronted Frank, the father, saying, "I can't invest in a company whose boss hates women!" Right about that time, Frank the dad had hired Frank the son, and his first job was to clean up this mess about how Frank Senior reportedly hated women. :)

My friend Rachel and I cleaned Frank's apartment for money. We were poor and happy to have the job. And it, being a bachelor pad, really needed the cleaning. They did white glove checks in the apartments at Ricks once a week, and Frank and his roomies kept failing their white glove. So Rach and I were recruited to help clean for a little bit of money. Frank was always so embarrassed about the state of the apartment, so he would kind of pre-clean before we went over there, which I thought was funny.

I remember Frank working at a video rental place. I knew his dad was wealthy, so I was impressed that he would work to push himself through college.

We both graduated from Ricks and moved on to BYU. We didn't see as much of each other as we once had, but every now and then, we'd get together. Some boy had broken my heart at some point, and I remember crying on Frank's shoulder about it.

"Hey, Kar," he said, with his little eyes gleaming and looking right at me - "If you want, I could do something to make his life, ah, a little less pleasant."

Wiping my nose, I said, "Um...really??"

"Yeah," he said, smiling shyly. "If you give me his e-mail address, I'll fill his in-box so full of spam that it will break down and he won't be able to use it for weeks."

I chuckled and sniffled. "Tempting, but...naw."

I remember I wanted to go to a movie with Frank and my BFF, Pooh. We decided to see Austin Powers. It was PG-13, but, ah, a little uncomfortable to watch, as we found out. I kept giggling nervously during those parts, and Frank kept looking at me with one eyebrow raised. I felt so devilish. He gave me soooo much crap for years afterward about my bad taste in movies. :)

As the years passed, we saw each other less and less, which is just life. I think the last time I saw him was maybe 12 years ago?? Before either of us was married.

And then I heard about him again, but in the worst possible way - Frank passed away the first part of November. He had committed suicide. He left behind his two sons, plus his five new stepkids and his new wife - they had just gotten married about six months earlier:

I felt so confused. And so sad. He must have been in such a difficult, painful place emotionally. It was hard to go to the funeral and see those darling children and know that they will be without a father for the rest of their lives. That made me cry.

I felt badly that I hadn't made a greater effort to call him or hang out recently.

When they say, "rest in peace," I really feel like that applies to Frank. He must not have been at peace. But I know he's in a better place now. A place of total peace.

Love ya, Frank.