2006-05-04 - 2:31 p.m.

MY FRIEND JIM died of pancreatic cancer two nights ago. He was a long-term survivor, having been diagnosed 8 months ago(!). From talking to other friends who went out to visit him and his family over the last month, he was really only awake maybe two hours a day and looked 80; he had just turned 50. He came home from the hospital on Tuesday, unconscious, on minimal food support and methadone. Maybe that's the mercy that he was able to die at home, without dragging it out too much for both his sake and his family's.

I knew Jim starting in the late 70's when we were both part of an underground newspaper at Boston University. We had good times running around in the Boston demimonde, gawking at various insane runk pock bands like The Real Kids and The Infliktors. We survived the two attempts to block the construction of the Seabrook, NH, nuke plant; we were both in a junker car that drove out into Route 1 in Seabrook, parked, threw the keys into the swamp, and ran like hell so the NH state police wouldn't club us to the street and drag us into court. He became a political journalist covering SE Asian affairs, especially the Philippines.

Once again I confront my only mortality; why Jim, and not me or others among our friends? That of course is the great imponderable of life; if I had the answer you'd be going to my church or whatever.

previous - next