In Memory Of Romain E. Helke: I lost My Best Friend On 10/12/09
Romain E. Helke was my best friend for some 3 decades. He was a talented and brilliant man, and the world is not quite the same without him in it! May he rest in peace!
Romain basically drank and smoked himself to death. A very tragic way to go. The last time I saw him was June of 2008 when we went to see the Paul Rogers concert at the casino. I had just started dating my soul mate, Miriam, and showed him a pile of pictures from our ocean shores vacation. I was anxious to have him meet her. I continued to call and email but there was no response at all for a good year and half. I think his health was getting the best of him. He always was a very private man.
I went to see a mutual friend, Jeff Glander, and told of this dilemma. He informed me that He had some heart surgery and had a pacemaker or something similar installed. He said he wanted to get with me but was not really seeing anybody. Jeff told me to send him an mail which I did more than once. I continued to reach out, but to no avail. I never did get any response back from him. I was quite bummed. He was, and still is, a very important part of my life. The very best friend a guy could every have! Really!
Just this last Saturday I got a call from Jeff. The bad news was that on Monday, October 16th, Ro passed out on his kitchen floor by a heart attack. He never made it to work and he has good work ethic. His boss was suspicious and went to his home in Auburn and found him lying face down in the kitchen.
I will attending the Memorial Service at Forest Lawn in Lacey this Wednesday, October 23, 2009 at 10pm. I am very bummed about this. I would have liked to have said good bye at least! It is weird, because the day before I heard the news we were watching video of Romain and myself playing music and being silly. It was sort of a psychic connection. This happens to me when people a admire and value die. Somehow I am able to pick up on their energy.
We were literally best friends for 29 years. I met him at The Living Water church back in 1980. We became room mates and then maintained a great friendship for almost 3 decades. He was my best friend, no doubt about it. Period!
We had a ton of things in common. We never seemed to miss a Seahawk game. We went to California 1991 in my van and saw Disneyland, Universal Studios, and The San Diego Zoo. We even went into Tijuana and partied our butts off. I videotaped about 4 hours of that trip, and I still have the tapes! Fun trip.
Ro bought a boat with his friend Jeff. For about ten years we took many fun trips to Lake Chelan, where we camped on the docks and watched dvd concerts until midnight. WE also went to Lake Washington many times, Summit lake, Black Lake, and Puget Sound too many times to count. I was proud to be the “First Mate”. I guess I was Gilligan and He was The Skipper! I have many pictures and fond memories of these times with him.
We went to see Paul McCartney at the Key Arena on November 3, 2005. This was an incredible show, and there is no one I would have rather attended this event with in the entire world. We both LOVE McCartney, and had a blast! We also saw Travis Tritt at the Puyallup Fair, and Paul Rogers at the Casino, Tammy Wynett, among other incredible events.
When he moved to Tacoma, we never missed a Seahawks game. We alternated hosting each other every Sunday, and even caught several games live at the Kingdome, and Husky stadium when they played there for a season. When he moved to Auburn for work purposes, our visits became less frequent because of nasty traffic and long distances, but we maintained communication over the phone and by emails and stuff. I always made time to get up to Auburn for the 5 pm games, and we never missed a Superbowl!
Romain was King of the coupon! We loved to save money on 2 for 1 meals, and did so often. It was also a game to see how much cash rewards we could make off our credit cards. Never more than a couple hundred dollars, but we had fun doing it! He taught a lot of cool things.
We both loved music. Especially the Beatles, and most of all Paul McCartney. We would bring our guitars up to Seattle and play at the water parks for anyone passing by. We both enjoyed live concerts on of our favorite bands, and often copied each others acquisitions onto video tape or dvd. Ro had a great voice and was a good songwriter as well. I always admired his love of music, and shared it right back with him.
So I lost my best friend, and it hurts! I still have the memories, many videos, and pictures. I wish we had a proper goodbye. I can see why he never returned my calls this last year and half. He was private man, and a very sick one. I wish I could have been there to call 911 and somehow prevent this tragedy. I miss him very much. “Let it be” by The the Beatles was always his favorite song. We even did a 4 track recording of it and made a cool lip sync MTV style video of it. When that song comes on the airwaves I always think of him. His memory will live on, but somehow I feel like I have lost very big part of myself along the way. It is hard to let Him go, but without choice in the matter I will have to move along and “Let it Be”…..
I look forward to seeing him in the sky someday!
Eric Turnbow
October 19, 2009
Update******************
The memorial was great! I was able to connect with a bunch of my friends from the old days including the Thompsons. My old friend, Paul, with whom I had lost touch with, played an original song that Romain had written decades ago and told some great stories. I touched base with his parents and offered my condolences, and his His Sister Dawn, and His brother Richard gave great eulogy’s that were personal and very easy to relate to. They mentioned His love of boating, music, and food! They had a wonderful power point tribute with fitting Beatles and Paul McCartney music as a background to some nostalgic pictures of my buddy Ro. Jeff and Beth Glander were there, as well as Greg Crawford and others that wanted to pay respect for Romain. I was asked to sort of MC the friends statements and bring the microphone around to all the guests to share fitting memories of a wonderful man. A few tears were shed and we all went home with sweet memories.
In fact, just last night I had a vivid dream that I was on vacation with Romain in a cabin on some lake somewhere, somehow. I wold Him that everyone thought he was dead and I was so happy to see we were wrong and that He was still alive. This seemed so real to me, that really do believe our spirits were together once again to share a moment or two. When I awoke though, I realized i had been sleeping, but somehow a cool breeze hit me just right, and I felt like there was something to this encounter. Perhaps a message for us all to let His loved ones know that all is well, and things will be alright. I believe that too! Long live “Rocking Ro”. His memory WILL endure.
ET 10/31/09
