Glen Sheridan Smith, 1966-2008

This weekend sucked. Plain and simple. Sarah and I went off and got secretly married on November 10th of last year. We still wanted to have the big wedding to please our families, but word got out about our marriage, so we had to fess up. Many people where happy for us, while my mother I think took not being there pretty hard, and she was the last person I wanted to hurt over this.

Anyway, that wasn't the only news this weekend. On March 26th my friend, Glenn Sheridan Smith, would have been 42. Unfortunately, sometime within the three or four days leading up to that, Sheridan died. His mother found him on Tuesday, March 26th, 2007 after he didn't return any of her phone calls.

I met Glenn back in '97 while working as a contractor for Motorola rolling out software to hundreds of users. Glenn had just gone through a horrible divorce, and had decided to leave Illinois and move out to his mother's house to get a new life. He even started going by the his middle name, Sheridan, which is how I knew him. He and I hit it off right away, as we got each other's humor. One particular incident where I was about to explain a potential problem to my boss, and as I started to explain the problem I could see my boss's eyes glare over, so what came out was. "I was talking to some guys, and they were saying some stuff." Sheridan looked at me, "You just relayed absolutely no information." I replied, "I realize I'm being a little vague." And we both started laughing. From that point on Sheridan and I were good friends. We would laugh about that statement for almost 10 years after the it happened. Sheridan, myself and another guy named Todd became the three amigos working at Motorola.

Our jobs ended up changing, Todd and Sheridan had a falling out, and for about a year or so Sheridan and I didn't talk much.

Later on we again started hanging out and we would hit Scottsdale and try out luck at the bars. Usually we would end up drunk and walking back to Sheridan's new apartment to the drunken jeers of those stupid enough to drive home, where I would crash on his couch and wake up without sleeping very much and with a hang over. After a while I decided that this was getting me no where, and that deep down I was a Christian, and that there had to be a better way, so I rededicated my life to Jesus, and cleaned up my act somewhat.

Sheridan really needed a wingman, and I pretty much decided the bars at Scottsdale where a hopeless venture, so we pretty much quit hanging out. But we kept in touch.

Probably around 2002 Sheridan and I would make it a point to hang out once a month or so. I'd take him out to dinner or he would cook me a meal and we would talk about Philosophy, the darker sides of the supernatural, Christianity, and the Fortean. We would have a great time talking about things that few people outside of ourselves could talk about, and we would talk sometimes until the sun came up, Sheridan drinking beers and smoking weed, me relaxing with a coke sometimes quoting Bible verses. A weird set of friends, but our friendship was strong.

I ended up meeting Sarah, and in 2007 I decided to see where this relationship would lead so I decided to head out to Michigan. Sheridan needed a place to stay, and I needed a tenant, so I rented him my condo and struck out for the Midwest. Sheridan always paid rent (though rarely on time, no biggy).

My deep regret is that towards the end of his life, Sheridan got flaky. At the time I thought it was because of laziness, I really didn't understand that his health was as bad as it was. I knew he needed help, but I didn't think he was at risk of loosing his life. My last conversation with Sheridan was on I believe Thursday, March 20th, 2008. He said he dialed a wrong number, but I could tell he needed to talk. So I put aside business, and we talked. I'm thankful that I got one last time to talk to my friend. I was a bit heavy on the lecturing, but we talked a bit like old times. It was good to talk to my friend as a friend, and I hopped my lectures found resonance.

After that he quit returning my calls, and I thought it was because of the rent business. I ended up calling his mother and leaving a message. She got back to me Saturday, the 29th, and let me know that Sheridan had passed. She found him in my condo, a day before his 42nd birthday, dead. We are not 100% sure when he died, or what the exact cause was. The suspicion is that his death was caused by this-

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/esophageal-varices/DS00820/DSECTION=9

The way his mother found him and his health history all point to this cause of death. It will be up to six months or so before the labs come back and we know for sure.

Sheridan lived a hard life. His parents divorced when he was young, and was often left alone either by himself or with his brother for days and sometimes weeks on end while he was little. When we was 12 he was running a raccoon skinning shop for his father, I'm sure a 12 year old kid in that sort of environment doesn't escape that without some sort of mental effects. Sheridan headed out to Arizona as a freshmen in high school, but for some reason moved back to Illinois with his father before finishing out the year.

Sheridan, like may people, discovered drugs and alcohol. The drugs were a passing thing, but the alcohol is what would eventually kill Sheridan. I think the addiction took hold of him sometime when he was going to college. Sheridan was brilliant, and managed to get a masters in molecular biology. He met his wife, Sasha, while in school, and I know he loved deeply. They were married around the time he got his masters degree.

I don't know what happened exactly, but I know Sasha lead a charmed life and success after college came easy for her, while Sheridan struggled. They were not only husband and wife but they were also peers. I think Sheridan's drinking really kicked in at this point, and a nasty divorce followed. Sheridan lost his wife, his life as a molecular biologist, and all his friends during the process, so he headed out to Arizona to start a new life, where I met him.

Sheridan had his ups and downs. He did extremely well at Motorola, making some gutsy political moves, like realizing he was going no where in his current position, so he showed up in shorts and a t-shirt, told everyone he was leaving, and ended up getting promoted beyond what our former friend Todd and others had obtained at Sheridan's expense. But the mistress of alcohol came back, and ultimately Sheridan lost his job, probably not due to the alcohol, but probably it was one more excuse that was needed to jockey him out the door in Motorola's politically charged environment.

He then worked at a Mac place, don't know to much about that one. The Sheridan found his dream job working at a school. He got plenty of time off, made good money, and really, really enjoyed his job. He also met another woman named Wendy, who he became engaged to. I never met her though I was slated be the best man at his wedding. The relationship broke up.

I think the loss of the school job, and to a lesser extent the loss of Wendy, marked the turning point for Sheridan. Reflecting back, that after this point in his life, deep in his soul he lost faith in life. He tried a few things, things that where outside of the box to try to get things on track, but they failed. After this point, I think that Sheridan was just dialing in his days till his death. Sure, he still wanted to enjoy life at times, but he rarely ventured out of his home, and pretty much financially he was living on the edge, so going out and spending money wasn't an option. He worked selling graves for about a year and a half, then ended up teaching biology at a school. I think his last job, though I think his health was going down to the point to where he was a shadow of who he once was, was the one he enjoyed the most. He really liked interacting with students, and if this job would have come his way earlier in life, maybe things would have been different.

People who loved him tried to get him to get help, but he was unwilling. My second to last conversation with him, after he had lost his latest job, he seemed to be about to the point where he might allow himself to be committed. If any of us would have known how bad things were, we would have acted. I will always feel some pain over this.

Sheridan at one point made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. It is my hope, that when my time to leave the earth comes, that I will again see my friend, and we will have much, much to talk about. If I don't see him, his loss is suffered by the whole universe, from God on down to all His creation.

Sheridan had a sharp mind. He was one of the few people I knew who independently of religious upbringing had looked at the world, and its craziness, and realized on his own that there was more to the world then meets the eye. He was a fellow Fortean soul, and we would talk for hours about the meaning of life, demonology, ghost, politics, conspiracy, and general topics as to the nature of why people acted the way they did. These topics burn within me, but I rarely talk about them with anyone. Sheridan was one of the few people who was on the same page as I am about a lot of things. Sheridan dared to look beyond the Vail, he maybe didn't see the same things that I saw, but he looked. Looking takes a certain type of person, and we had mutual respect for each other and a sort of kindred spirit because we had experienced and thought about things that most people don't.

Sheridan did some things that many people where put off by, including myself. I'm not talking about the drinking, all of us including him knew that was a given that it was wrong. My lasting regret, and the one I take the most pain from, is that I sort of judged him on some of these things. Ultimately Sheridan was after just what we all want. A way to ease the loneliness. A steady job. A feeling of purpose. Finding the way back to God. Being loved. And loving someone else. Sheridan at points went outside the norm when traditional ways of meeting these needs failed him. I judged him for this, though I never verbalized it, I'm sure it came across in my attitude at times. I don't think God judged him for this. Sin is sin, but we are all sinners, even though some are better at hiding it then others. Sheridan had the guts to for things though unusual means. Others claim to not use these means because of morality, but really it was fear or lack of creativity. Sheridan in this sense was braver then most. And I think I misrepresented God to him about this at times. Sheridan, I love you man like a brother, and I'm sorry I came across the way I did.

Glenn Sheridan Smith. Raccoon skinner, minor league drug dealer, wood chopper, roofer, molecular biologist, lab worker, scare crow at a Halloween house, Netscape installer, Desktop support tech and dispatcher, meat seller, grave seller, and lastly, teacher, most of all friend, you will be missed. You were one of my best friends, and your loss will be felt for years, and I will think of you often. I still have more things to say to you, and more things to write to celebrate who you were. I'm sorry they were not celebrated so much while you were still here. My hope is that you will forgive me for this, as you are in a much, much better place, and you look forward to meeting me for one of our chats and dinners in an eternal dwelling.

Till we meet again.

Glen Sheridan Smith, 1966 - 2008