He has gone. We have lost him.

This evening I learned of the death of a very dear friend. A man known to the majority of the readership of this blog as the Race Daddy.

This afternoon, while out in the hills training with friends Dario Melaragni suffered a massive heart attack and died.
There is no need for flowery language or clichés. He has gone we have lost him.

Dario and I clicked right away. I guess he picked up on my weakness for saying YES and agreeing to volunteer for stuff without fully considering the implications.

He broke us in gently, Mum and Me. He gave us a checkpoint next to the shops, cool!
What he didn’t tell us was that the shopkeeper was a miserable old so and so and he would call the police to us on two separate occasions.

That same year he tried to make up for his lack of truth telling by giving my Mum his car. That sounds a bit extreme but its true. You know when you look in your goodie bag to check out the contents and feast your eyes at the latest buff? Well, can you imagine Mums delight when there, at the bottom of her bag was a glint of silver and a mat black key fob. She was thrilled, winning some sort of prize draw that she never knew she’d entered. She quickly ran round the car park to find her prize.
It didn’t take long to workout what had actually happened.
While the dumplin was filling the goodie bags his bloody keys fell out of his pocket right into my Ma’s treasure. She made a big show of it at the prize giving by presenting the back to him. I seem to remember a story of getting a lift back to Blackford to retrieve the spare set. Numptie.

The next year he decided to up the anti and hit us with a double shift through the night.
This year he topped it off by having me on duty beginning middle and the end. And glad to help I was. The thing with Dario was he asked in such a way that you couldn’t say no, he just assumed you’d do it. He used to say to me “when your in your in” “you don’t get out unless you replace yourself!” I never got the chance to tell him, I was still building up the courage……. Dave wants me to support him next year. Can I have the day off please?

My friendship with Dario existed out with the race. Although, our telephone conversations often included reference to how “the race” & “the family” helped us through tough times. As it has tonight.

I’ll miss him in my life.
He showed me a world; a way of life, a group of people I never knew existed. A world I feel part of now.
A world that will mourn his loss with many tears.
I have in my hand a glass, a crystal type glass, with engraving. It contains a generous amount of red wine. A glass I will raise to a friend lost much too soon.

To Dario,
Slainte Mhath