Adieu, mon ami

Adieu: from Old French a dieu, (I commend you) to God : a, to (from Latin ad) + Dieu, God (from Latin deus)

Despite your best intentions to get to know the locals, when you're an expat in a foreign country, hanging out with other Americans can be as restful as flopping in an old easy chair. So it was with our friends Joe and Jill, fellow Midwesterners (as Minnesotans, they were the genuine article) living in Brussels at the same time we did.

Joe and Jill jumped into European living with zest. Their travels took them to the continent's great cities—Paris, Rome, Athens, Venice, Berlin—as well as to quirky, known-only-to-locals spots, such as the only farm in Belgium that sells donkey milk (with the added benefit of a herd of adorable donkeys for Jill, a great animal lover, to pet). They loved perusing the open air markets for antiques, trying grand and hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and entertaining their friends in their beautiful, high-ceilinged row house near the Ixelles ponds. (Joe made an exquisite kir royale and then told you hilarious stories while you were trying to drink it, making it difficult not to snort champagne out your nose.)

Joe, an accomplished cyclist with, as Jill says, a "passion" for riding, went native and joined a bicycling club in a country where cycling is revered; Belgians follow the Tour de France with the enthusiasm of Americans during March Madness. After he and Jill were transferred to southern California late last year, he became a member of a local cycling club.

Joe was struck and killed by an underage, drunk driver during a cycling club ride in the Angelus National Forest last Saturday morning. He was 43; he and Jill had been married for six years.