Names of the Dead

Back in 1996, I lived across the hall from a good guy named Chas. He was in construction and ran supervisor jobs in the Dayton, Ohio area. He caught a bug and had to stay home a couple days. It got worse, but he felt he could fight it off on his own as he wasn't insured. I stopped in on him one day on the way home. He answered, mumbled something incoherent as he stroked his beard... and toppled like a felled tree. Dead. His brother later told me his electrolytes were way off because of the diarrhea he suffered from this bug. He had long battled hepatitis that he contracted while helping clean up and reconstruct in Hawaii after Hurricane Iniki. A good, independent man. Lost to the world because he had to make a decision whether to go to the doctors over what seemed a minor bug. That is a decision, I feel, that should never have to be made. He left behind a teenage daughter that he had just reconnected with and a couple of truly sorrowful neighbors who still keep his picture.