For those of you who actually knew him, I'm sorry for the inaccurate representation. It's not easy to draw from memory for me. I really REALLY wish I didn't have to do it. Especially now. But I made this #dailysketchext today because I wanted to remember this expression (or something like it) that I could conjure up on Daniel Bartels' face by just being my wacky self and constantly harassing him to for-the-love-of-all-that-is-good please let me reshoot his ID photo. For the last 2 or 3 years I have been bugging him to let me reshoot his ID photo. When I saw him again in December after a long time of not seeing him, he FINALLY agreed to let me shoot it. It was a miracle that he finally agreed. We would do it at the next meeting for RBC/LDC in January. But, I was sick in January and I didn't go, and so I didn't find out that he was sick too. Today was my first day back and I didn't realize until today that almost three weeks ago he passed away; it turns out he had leukemia. When I saw the booklet from the memorial service I really, truly, honestly thought it was some sort of joke... He's 26 for crying out loud... I still can't wrap my mind around this.
I am especially sad for his dad though and his surviving brother. His mom actually just died, maybe a little over a year ago. His other brother died some time back. All that's left is the father and one son... I am definitely going to pray for them tonight.