Mentor and loyal friend. He ran through wires, disguised in screens. He blended patterns of input streams. He traced out pathways, dissolved in beams. He breached through cores on static wings.

Twitter post by an anonymous friend

                  Good Timber

• • by Douglas Malloch

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth,
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.

Everyone loved Jerold.  If you didn't then you didn't really understand him.  He befriended people that were different, the people overlooked, not quite perfect or the misfits.  He was kind and gentle with a heart of gold.  I am very proud to have had the pleasure of being his Mother.  He truly was a very bright spot in my world.  I called him "sun". 

Jerold was given a defender position. He was 5 or 6 years old.  The ball was kicked down the field in play by the other team but Jer did not even attempt to kick the ball away from the opponent.  The Coach pulled him aside and said, "Jer, why didn't you kick the ball away from the player?  Didn't you realize that was what you were suppose to do?  Jer said, "I can't kick the ball away from him!  Timmy is my friend!"

And that was the story that played out much of his life.  He had a blind loyalty to friends.