Friends say he was heading to the store. That was the last time they saw him.

Friends say Howard Christian "Chris" Suggs was always laughing and smiling "no matter what kind of a day he had."

He was the "cheerleader" at the North Strand Housing Shelter, lifting up the spirits of his fellow residents with an occasional happy dance, livening up a room with laughter, making sure everyone felt included.

Residents were missing him on Thursday.

"They broke the mold when they made Chris," Wendy Hatcher said as she wiped a tear from her cheek inside the North Strand Housing Shelter.

Najeev Abdru said Suggs was heading to the Food Lion store on S.C. 9 Tuesday morning.

"I told him, ‘don’t go. It’s about to rain.’ But he said, ‘I’ll be alright,’" Abdru recalled.

That was the last time Abdru saw Suggs alive.

Suggs was riding his mo-ped south on S.C. 9 nearing the Food Lion around 9 a.m. Tuesday when he was struck from behind by a sport utility vehicle.

Suggs died at the scene from internal injuries sustained in the crash, according to Horry County Coroner Robert Edge. Suggs was 39 years old.

The driver of the SUV was charged with driving too fast for conditions, but the wreck remains under investigation, according to Cpl. Sonny Collins with the South Carolina Highway Patrol.

"He was my best friend," Abdru said.

Suggs was from Marion, but had come to stay at the shelter in Longs for his second time in two years about a month ago. He was working to get his life back on track after being convicted of a few petty crimes that made finding full-time, reliable employment difficult. But Suggs had found a temporary job as a maintenance worker in Myrtle Beach.

He had just found a camper and was searching for a lot to put it on.

Things were looking up.

Suggs could have been at the shelter helping Emily Harris move that morning, but she said she forgot to ask him.

"I feel kind of bad because if I had remembered Monday night to say something, ‘hey, would you help me tomorrow morning?’ Then maybe this wouldn’t have happened," said Harris, who volunteers at the shelter.

Suggs was always ready to lend a helping hand.

"He would always help you no matter what," Naihmy Abdru said.

All they had to do was ask, Harris said. And even when they didn’t ask, sometimes he just knew what was needed.

Like the time Harris said she was cold and Suggs offered her a shirt to keep her warm.

"The shirt off his own back," Najeev Abdru added

Or the time when Suggs restored Najeev Abdru’s malfunctioning earphones to working order.

"He was so clever," Naihmy Abdru said. "He was great with his hands, getting things to work and fixing all of these electronics."

And when his new mo-ped showed up on the back of a truck, Suggs went to work restoring it too.

He was handy with landscaping as well – a talent the Abdrus noticed when Suggs landscaped the yard in front of the shelter in one day.

Harris said Suggs loved to cook. He whipped up a pot of stew for the shelter Monday night, she said.

He was also a proud father of a 19-year-old son, who lived out of state, the Abdrus added.

Friends say Suggs loved action movies, knew the Bible inside and out and was always quick to make them laugh.

"He was a great guy, always had something great to say to make you feel better, always joking," Harris said. "They brought coats in here a week ago Tuesday and he picks up a ladies’ leopard print (coat). Of course he’s tall and skinny, he could put it on.

"But the sleeves are like up to here on him," she said, pointing to her upper forearm.

"He’s dancing around, showing off," she said with a laugh. "He was always great to be around."

Then, Harris paused. The smile faded from her face.

"It was a shock," she said.

"He was young. I didn’t expect him to go like that," Najeev Abdru added later.

Two days before Suggs was hit, he narrowly escaped two wrecks with other drivers on the same day.

"That’s what he told me. He said, ‘these guys are trying to hit me,’" Najeev Abdru said. "I told him, I said, ‘You’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to get a helmet.’"

Hatcher, the assistant director at the shelter, said Suggs was a great friend to her, her husband and their family.

They learned later that her husband had passed Suggs on the road that morning. He was about a mile ahead when the wreck happened. No one at the shelter knew until later that day.

But Hatcher had a feeling something wasn’t right.

"I had called him a few times that morning and Chris never, never didn’t return my call," Hatcher said. But a return call never came Tuesday morning.

"It was just devastating for us here," she said. "A family member’s gone, not just a friend. We thought a lot of Chris."

"North Strand Housing Shelter was better for him being here," Hatcher said. "For a person to come through here like that and for people to meet him and know that even though we’re going through this (hard time), there is still a better outlook on life. You can still smile. You can still have a good time…"

That meant a lot to people around him, she said, as residents and workers in the shelter found comfort in his memory Thursday night and made plans to pile in a van to attend his funeral the following day.

"Nobody … knows what time they’ll go. You’ve got to make every day like your last day," Najeev Abdru said.

This story was originally published December 2, 2016 at 6:03 PM with the headline "Friends say he was heading to the store. That was the last time they saw him.."