Farewell to a Friend

We lost a friend yesterday. After two heroic battles with lung cancer, complications took their toll, and his wife (Sue) told me he succumbed yesterday morning.

I am tremendously sad about this for obvious reasons, but even more so because when we found out he was in jeopardy again, we never got an opportunity to visit. For the last 3 or 4 months of 2012, my family had some kind of illness or another, and we didn’t want to risk worsening his already compromised health.

His wife sent a message on Monday letting us know that John had gotten much worse and that he had been moved to hospice care. This was shocking, as their combined wills had overcome so much during his cancer nightmares. I had been under the assumption that once the issue was diagnosed and understood that they would be able to get past it.

And so, we planned to visit John either Thursday or Friday this week, and now it’s too late. I know that John would not have held this against us, and I’m sure his wife does not, either. It is what it is. (That has become my least favorite phrase.)

She has asked me to put together a song list for his services and I am honored to do it. Music was one of our favorite things to discuss, and I liked talking to him about different records because he didn’t pull punches. If he didn’t like something, he didn’t patronize, he just said so. I did the same. And when I’d suggest something that he did like, it was great, because I knew it was genuine.

He turned me on to Calexico. I hadn’t heard of them, and had I heard a description of them first, I’d have never bothered. Turns out I love them. This is the kind of thing that I will remember forever about John. There are lots of other examples.

We also loved to meet John and his wife (and our other friends) at the fish fry in Maple Park. Bringing Eli along was even more fun, as he really liked John and it was pretty easy to tell that John was also fond of him. The food was almost irrelevant; we were there for the conversation and the good feeling we had by the time we parted ways.

I am sad that Eli will not be able to visit John at Garfield Farm this year. I will miss our lengthy discussions about music and beer. I am sad knowing that a philosophical ally will no longer be available.

Another story: Jennie and I were driving to Wisconsin one Saturday morning, listening to NPR and discussing how much we enjoyed NPR on Saturdays. It was a pledge weekend, and we were considering contributing for the first time, when we heard “...and a pledge from Sue G. and John E. from Maple Park...” We made our first pledge as a couple after that.

Goodbye, John. Thanks for being a good friend.