John

I’ve got a friend I’ll call John, because that’s his name. John and I have known each other for years now. We met at a dinner organized by mutual friends, and it didn't take long to figure out that we had a lot in common. Over time we became the best of friends. Sometimes it was almost like we were living parallel lives...I was married to a vegetarian…John was married to a vegetarian. I got cancer...John got cancer...John got a divorce - I got a divorce. John bought a motorcycle…I bought a motorcycle. We drank good whiskey and talked about women and relationships...John couldn't figure women out - I couldn't figure women out...but I guess that isn’t real unique. I’m pretty sure no man has ever figured women out, but we kept on trying anyway. We talked about investments and we talked about what the future holds and we talked about living and we talked about dying, and we talked about everything in between. John never had kids and I did, but he was still able to offer useful insights when it came to being a good dad to my daughter. John was always pretty insightful when it came to family stuff. John comes from a family where family still means something, and it shows.

When John was living in Austin, and I was living a couple of hundred miles north, I'd ride my motorcycle down to his place on a Friday evening, spend the night, and the next morning we'd both get on our scooters and go ride in the Hill Country of Texas. We’d eat Bar-B-Q or chicken fried steaks and get wind burned and get lost and just generally have a hell of a good ole time. John’s always loved Texas, even thought he’s not a native Texan. He said you didn’t have to be born in God’s country to recognize it when you see it.

I'll never quit chuckling over the time we rode down to the Frio River and rented tubes to spend a day floating the river. There was a little waterfall/rapid chute that emptied into a pool below. Some people were portaging around it, but it didn't look too bad, so over we went. John's butt was hangin out of the bottom of the tube and found the only big rock in the pool below as he came splashing down and it broke his tailbone. We did the ride home 10 miles at a time because that's as far as he could ride before he had to get off the bike and walk around a bit and give his achin’ tailbone a rest. 200 miles is a long way when you’re averaging 20 miles an hour.

When I was diagnosed with cancer there were plenty of people around to tell me it was all going to be fine and talk all nicey nice, but John was the only person I knew who had the guts to talk with me straight about the illness, my options, and the possible outcomes. John's not one to sugar-coat things. He's direct to the point of being blunt sometimes, which not everyone can handle, but John's never been one to let what other people think influence who he was. When he laughs it's not a polite chuckle...if John thinks something's funny he laughs so hard that it's infectuous....you'd wind up laughing with him even if you didn't hear the joke.

I can't think of too many times in my life where I laughed so hard and so long that my side would hurt, but when I do recall those times, I realize that John was the instigator of most of them.

It's a blessing to have a friend who can make you laugh uncontrollably, who can be practical and serious and wise when the situation calls for practical and serious and wise, and who is all heart when things are tough. It's rare to find all of those things in one person. Lots of us do a passable job of getting along in the world but it takes a special person to understand what life is really all about, and John has always been one of those special people.

John was diagnosed with cancer himself about three years after I was. His prognosis was worse than mine....right off he lost a kidney and got a steel rod in place of most of one thighbone. They told him he had about a year, and he moved up to Pennsylvania to be close to his family. I visited, and we talked about his illness, his options, and his possible outcomes, just like he did with me. I didn't sugarcoat anything, because that’s not John’s way. But John's a fighter, and he told me that there's always someone who beats the odds and he reckoned he could be that someone as well as the next guy, and that's exactly what he proceeded to do. A year later, he was still around and had no detectable cancer. That doesn't mean he got a clean bill of health, because when you have stage four cancer like he did, they figure it's still lurking somewhere in your system. John said he was living on borrowed time now, but he wasn’t done living. He visited Texas last fall and he planned a spring visit to Texas to see the Bluebonnets in bloom as part of his plans for the future. They found cancer again a few months ago, and John had to cancel his spring trip back to Texas to see the Bluebonnets.

John went ahead with his plans to purchase a condo because he’d been renting for a few years and he wanted a place to call his own. He spent the past month or so supervising the remodeling project even though he was sick. I’d call and he’d tell me all about his plans and how the project was going and why he was doing things the way he was doing them…he’d sometimes do things different than what most of us would do, but he’d always tell you why. He always had a reason, and when you heard the reason, it was always logical and practical. I’ve learned a lot from John over the years, because John’s always been a thinker that way. He was almost like a kid when he was making plans and creating stuff….you could hear the excitement in his voice. Just listening to him on the phone would have me grinning. John’s just like that. You gotta love it.