Soon a good friend of mine will be leaving. Supposedly Hallmark, or Bartlett's Quotations, has words for any occasion. But not really something for this, not anything that can grab the particulars of the loss and hope I have for him. This, then, is my clumsy attempt at a tribute, words not only to thank him but also to deal with the coming fact of his absence.
I don't want to put too much of a dark point on this. I will still be visiting him in Florida, speaking with him on the phone, writing him letters, using the means around me to keep meaning in our friendship. But a dailyness of contact will be missing. The most enjoyable part of my day was sitting and talking with him in the morning before we started work. We would range from his son's baseball game and observations about ambitious Little League parents to the latest work being done on neutrinos. We would share books and debate them, share gossip and add to it. There was nothing large or grand in this; or, rather, any grandness came from an intimacy slowly built from casual increments, small bits of news from the provinces adding up to a textured dimensioned chronicle of knowing each other. I will miss these daily reports, miss binding them together.
I suppose I could go on in this fashion, listing the things I will miss. Yet there are lauds here to be given, and I will give them the best I can. He is a kind man, fiercely loyal to his friends. He is one of the few people I've met I would consider a thinker, one who synthesizes rather than simply rearranges data. He has a strong gift of integrity. He hates injustice and stupidity, hates the arrogant pettiness of certain kinds of authority; but he is also one of the most casual moralists I have ever met, willing to let people pursue their ambitions and live the lives they want to live. He carries a fine insouciance with him, a joy of living that comes from a true belief that you can't take it with you. He provides well for his family, never scants their needs, but is self-indulgent without guilt, unburdened by the puritan ethic of saving-for-the-rainy- day-that-never-comes; to him, it rains quite often. He is a wonderful raconteur, brash and full-blown, and an excellent poet. He sports a sense of humor both wry and wicked, as easily displayed in a savage lampoon as in the casual dirty joke. He is, in short (for I could go on longer), one of the fullest human beings I have met, clearly alive to life and the world.
I will miss him, and it will hurt to miss him. There are no good quotes or cards to cover this occasion, partly because there is, really, no such thing as friendship in the abstract, only what occurs between people knowing each other. It has been good to know him.
A Quiet Of Breathing
Street People