2007-02-28 - 4:17 p.m.

a very good friend died last week

i’m tired of loosing friends to death

first there was jr, who died during childbirth
then there was dw, who smoke, got cancer and his body didn’t like it
then there was aj, who smoked, got cancer and his body didn’t like it
then there was mo, who didn’t smoke, but got cancer, fought for years and finally her body said no
and, now there is tk, who had parkinson’s, got a bad cold and his body couldn’t fight it

5 very good friends who have died since i was 25 and i’m currently 50 - ~sigh~

if i keep going at this rate and live as long as my mother who is currently 88, i won’t be going to any funerals by that point cuz no one will be around

the world has lost another good person

tk was one of those people who liked life and tried to find out as much about it as he could – he didn’t just coast

he was a person who would challenge you – you couldn’t make an off-handed comment about something – like politics, or religion, or the traffic if you weren’t willing to explain how you came to that conclusion

in reality, this could sometimes be a pain in the butt – i don’t know how many times i would throw up my hands and say ‘just because’ to him when he had worn me down

i sometimes wondered how his wife lived with him and this particular trait – and, she told me the other day when we were laughing about it, that sometimes she just would tell him to zip it – he was lucky to get a woman who was just as curious about life, but also as strong as him and could stand up to him

many memories come flooding back when someone passes away - the laughter, the long conversations, the raised eyebrows, the arguements which ended up resolved, the runs to the blue bunny for ice cream, the walks through the tunnels looking for a quicker way to get around, sitting at the house after he had prostate surgery and having him explain in detail what occurred to the point that he got out the medical book to show me diagrams, the e-mail thanking you for the clown horn you sent him for his walker which was annoying everyone in the lab, and so many more

tk was the lab manager for the chairman at my old job

i remember the day i met him – i had just started my job at nu and really didn’t know what the heck i was suppose to be doing

the new boss hadn’t moved from boston yet, but was on his way in a month or so

he had hired tk to set up and manage his lab, the one he was bringing

tk showed up looking like a hippy – long hair in a pony tail saying he was going to start working for jl soon and where should he start – i wasn’t sure i knew what he should do, but i guess we figured it out between the two of us and helped grow a lab and division from a small group of people to over 70 by the time i left

tk ended up being more than just jl’s lab manager, he ended up being the division’s lab manager – if there was an area that didn’t fall to any one specific lab, it seemed to end up falling to him – though he worked hard to get other’s involved and become responsible – sometimes it worked

he was also one of the main lab resources for grad students or postdocs when they joined the division and because of this, he knew almost everyone – i remember this was hard on him – university life revolves around change – people come and go with frequency – it’s a non-ending cycle – sometimes you connect at a friend level, rather than just as a colleague and when the inevitable happens and they move on and you stay behind, you feel a great deal of loss – i remember we talked about this several times - at times he would say he was never going to get close to another person again because they would always move on and he was left behind, but his personality was such that he couldn’t not make new friends

i remember when i left nu and moved to sf – i had a real problem with telling him – i thought that after 10 years he would feel i was deserting him

i know he was disappointed and hated to see me go, but i also know he understood the need i had to move and find a new life - i think he was pretty proud of me for pulling up stakes and leaving all behind

one of the ways i value my worth is by my friends

i love my family, but i was born into them and can’t make any changes to that unit

but, friends are people who allow you into their lives – they can choose to walk away if you don’t measure up to their friendship measuring stick

when i look at my truly good friends, of which tk was one, i find a good set of people – and when i’m down on myself about something or other, i try to remember that there is this group of people out there that likee me, not because i’m related to them, but just because they like who i turned out to be and this means a lot to me

having tk include me in his group of friends made me feel very good about myself – he didn’t like lightweights, he wanted his friends to have substance

i know i’ve been very lucky to have known him and i’m grateful for this, and i know i would rather have this feeling of loss because he is gone, than to have never known him

but, damn it all, it hurts to know he is gone

later days!

previous - next