I lived in Germany during the 1995-1996 school year.

While I was there, in addition to my studies at the University of Frankfurt, I had an internship at the local Merrill Lynch office.

One of the brokers there was an expat American, former Air Force officer named Marvin.

He kind of took me under his wing (pun sort of intended) and was a frequent source of advice, education, and inspiration.

He also invited me to his home to watch the Cowboys-Steelers Super Bowl game that went from midnight to 4am. His incredible wife, Ingrid, prepared a great party atmosphere for the two of us. It was a proper Super Bowl event, even if it was the middle of the night.

Marvin was a class act.

Since then, we had stayed in touch. I would call Marvin on his birthday and I would get the annual Christmas letter from them, outlining their travels and their views on world politics. I always enjoyed reading them.

The last few years, however, Marvin could no longer write them. He was stricken with Parkinson’s and Ingrid wrote them herself. She displayed a combination of Stoicism in the face of her hardship matched with gratitude that she still had the time with him.

It was heartbreaking to read the letters and track Marvin’s decline annually. You could feel him slipping away in slow motion, even as it was Ingrid’s daily reality.

The other day, a letter showed up from Ingrid (yep, in the mail-they were old school that way) and it clearly wasn’t Christmas.

The news that we knew was coming had in fact come. Marvin had passed.

I’ve been thinking about him since then and I kept thinking about the opening lines to the Commodores’ song, “Nightshift.”

“Marvin…he was a friend of mine.”

Yes, he was.