Deputy Sohmer was so kind to everyone at work l work with him at BSO for years always a smile and a entertaining story My condolences to his family prayers and blessings for you just know he was a asset for this world

At my Mom’s memorial service a couple years ago, my sister referred to Paul as our “honorary brother”. Paul was very happy to hear himself described that way.

One dictionary defines the word honorary as “…the privilege of being associated with or receiving a favor from a respected person, group, organization, etc.”

Paul truly felt honored and privileged to be considered part of our family.

My fifty-year friendship with Paul began in our tenth grade English class. Paul asked if i would lend him a book about the Marx Brothers. Of course I lent it to him.

Over the course of our high school years, Paul and I read and traded books. We discussed old movies we had seen on TV. We attended a Marx Brothers Film Festival.

We rehearsed comedy sketches that were never performed for anyone but ourselves. Paul loved to make people laugh. Good jokes or bad jokes, whatever worked.
Paul even joined the high school Marching Band!

Don’t misunderstand. Paul was not a musician. But he could carry a sousaphone and march in formation. That was all that was required. Paul had no musical training or talent at all. But he taught himself how to make sounds come out of the sousaphone. Not music.  But sounds. Squeaky, belching, annoying sounds. If Paul couldn’t be a musician he would be a clown. I can still see him laughing hysterically as he made his crazy sounds on his tuba while we marched in the half-time show at the first football game of the season.

But Paul did improve the band significantly by relinquishing his mouthpiece for the rest of the year.

During high school and into his early adulthood Paul was almost always at our house. He was my friend, but my sister and my brothers were fond of him as well. As were my Mom and Dad. . Paul had found it much more enjoyable to eat and sleep at our house rather than at his father’s place. So my parents allowed Paul to live with us for about a year.

Then Paul started to travel. He made a few trips to Europe. He even lived in London for about a year.

One summer,  Paul and I backpacked through Europe.

At some point, we both had to grow up.  I was a cop in Miami Beach and Paul was a corrections deputy in Broward County. We both got married and started our families. And we didn’t see as much of each other any more.

Before we knew it we were both retired. We saw each other more again. And Paul was his old silly self I remembered from high school.  Enjoying life. Hoping to laugh and make others laugh.

The last two Februaries, Paul and Donna joined me and my wife, April on a couple of Caribbean cruises.

Paul and Donna really were the perfect travel companions. And they were the perfect couple. Meeting Donna was the best thing that ever happened to Paul. And he knew it. They loved each other very much.

I was stunned this past May to hear that Paul had suffered a stroke. But Paul seemed to have fared pretty well.

Always cheerful, even in the immediate aftermath of his stroke, Paul , from his hospital bed would greet everyone with a loud “Hello” and an enthusiastic waving of his arms.

It didn’t matter who you were. Family, friends, medical staff, even fellow patients just passing by his open door. If Paul could see you he gladly welcomed you into his world.

When I visited Paul in the hospital he was always alert. It seemed that the only lasting effect of Paul’s stroke was some temporary loss of speaking and writing skills. His intellect was not harmed. Paul could still beat me soundly in chess as he had always done.

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I have to confess that Paul and I really enjoyed our conversations after his stroke. In a therapeutic game of charades, Paul would mime words or phrases with maybe only a tenuous link to the ideas he was trying to express. We congratulated ourselves when I figured out what Paul was trying to say. And we laughed when my interpretation was not even close.

Donna was sometimes impressed that Paul could express himself to me by miming a single word that, to her, wasn’t even remotely related to the subject matter.

But Paul and I were not so surprised. We were best friends for fifty years. A half a century of shared experience.

Paul was recovering so well from his stroke.  His communication skills were improving and he had lost weight and had greatly improved his blood pressure.

So it was a great shock that Paul succumbed to an unforeseen heart attack. I suddenly realized something I had not understood before.

I had it backwards.

Yes, Paul was my honorary brother. But it was not he who was honored and privileged to be part of our family. It was OUR honor and OUR privilege that for fifty years Paul Sohmer was a part of our lives.

Rest in Peace….