It's hard to believe it has been a whole year since we lost our friend. 

I miss him every day.

Today it has been 8 months!

This just seemed to fit how I feel a lot. 

We all miss you!

Christopher Saylor memory

In my entire life I have never met anyone as capable and competent as Christopher. That by itself would have been enough for an epitaph. Everything he touched in business bloomed. I met him when he went to work for Sac Val. I remember our first sales meeting. He looked us over and said “I notice the sales force is a little long in the tooth.” None of us old timers were impressed by that, though it was true. I remember Tom McKeel saying give him a chance, he’s gonna be good. Truer words were never spoken. From that day forward everything got better. We were a good company before. We were a better company after.

Christopher had an amazing ability to understand people, what they were capable of and what they were not. He put the right people in the right place and helped them succeed. He was equally comfortable with the C.E.O of a large corporation or with a minimum wage custodian, and gave each respect and understanding. On a personal level, I have never met anyone I felt understood me as well as Chris, and I’m not easily understood, I’m sort of an odd duck. I used to get a big kick out of how he would work me, intuitively knowing how to get the best out of me whether I was at my best or my worst. I could discuss anything with him from music to religion to politics to homelessness (oh yeah, and to sales) and he always seemed to totally get it.

When I heard he had cancer, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. I loved this man. We had numerous heart talks and I prayed many a earnest prayer over my friend. This was all such a hard thing to understand. I still don’t get it, but the best I can figure out is this: Christopher was a bright burning candle, blazing in the night, lighting every corner of his life, making everything, and most everybody better, and in his short life, he accomplished more than most of us could ever even see the possibility of, and as a Christian, my biggest hope is that someday I’ll see him again and be able to tell him once again how much he meant to me by who he was, and what he was to my life.