Moving Standard-Times tribute describes Taunton victim as a ‘man who knew life was precious’
The digital editor at the New Bedford Standard-Times remembered his former coworker and friend George Heath, one of the victims of the deadly Taunton stabbings, in a tribute posted online Wednesday.
Jonathan Comey described Heath, who worked at the paper before taking a job teaching art at Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational-Technical High School in 2004, as “one of a kind” and “someone you could count on.”
“George was the person you most wanted to bump into at the watercooler,” he wrote. “He’d tell you about his trip to the beach for an exhilarating sailboarding session, or his thoughts on the events of the day, and you wished you were out with him in the world at large instead of in the office with its deadlines.”
Comey also described Heath as someone who “would have wanted to help,” during the attack—which, according to police, is exactly what he did. He was stabbed while trying to defend a waitress who was under attack, according to authorities.
Heath’s wife, Rosemary, took to Facebook Wednesday, saying the tribute was “perfectly written and SO George.”
https://www.facebook.com/rlynchrobinsonheath/posts/10154792942393942?pnref=story
Heath was one of two people killed Tuesday night in the stabbing spree, which started at a home and continued at the Silver City Galleria. The suspect was fatally shot by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy in the Bertucci’s where Heath was dining.
Comey wrote that his friend’s death seemed “cruel beyond belief.”
“I know I’ll…think of him with a big smile. He’d like that,” he wrote. “But today, I am going to cry for my friend, and I think he’d like that as well, because he was a man who knew life was precious, and that sometimes tears were the price.”
Read Comey’s full tribute at the Standard-Times.
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