John Jones

JOHN JONES
1964-2012
How is it possible that one of your dearest friends could die...and you don't find out until over half a year later?
No, neither John nor i were arctic explorers (but let's not kid ourselves...in this era of satellite communication, even those folk are only a dial away...hm, did i just say "dial"?). Nor were either of us a Guantanamo detainee, eliminating the only remaining plausible explanation.
But then, perhaps this isn't as improbable as it feels, in this land of staggering population densities, same-day contintental travel at the drop of a few thousand dimes, and an average of fourteen addresses per lifetime.
No, perhaps the amazing thing is that i found out at all. For in close to a decade of friendship, i never met a single other friend or acquaintance of John's, and he never met a single one of mine. How do you get news to someone that nobody but the deceased knew existed? I can only imagine assume that Kristen did a search of John's inbox to find any loose threads of his life.
Bless her.
John and i first met in a seedy little dive in Marrakesh...no wait, that was John Noonian Jones. Who were we talking about?
Reading the reminisces from his friends is a bit eye-opening. Not that he was so cherished, but that he was so, quite widely. I must inform Cynthia, however, that there's one error in her luminous remembrance - not ALL of John's friends were conscientious professionals. At least one of them was an aprofessional, dimestore buddha.
Another curious aspect to my long ignorance is that i was no stranger to his illness. I visited him several times at the hospital after his surgery. He asked me to run some errands, and perhaps some other business. As he enjoyed some of my writings, i'd looked forward to having him as a captive audience. He wanted to pay me for my visits, and i honestly can't remember whether i was able to dissuade him. I knew that it had always been important to him to be financially generous with me. I think he looked favorably upon my non-materialist life, and wanted to know i was cared for.
Another reason i went through the past half-year assuming he was fine, was that there was no feeling of death about him when we parted. It didn't occur to me to think anything of some unanswered e-mails - there had always been lapses in our talks. Plus, one aspect of being a two-cent thoreau is that we have a generally different relationship with time. We almost always know what decade it is, but anything more specific can get hazy. In my memory, i was sure i'd visited him at Sinai in the fall, but realize now it must have been earlier.
The subject of money harks back to how we first met - as client and coach. He hired me (and my extensive theater background) to improve his public speaking, an aspect of his life that had given him bouts of flop sweat. For several years, we met every month or two at Columbus Circle, for exercises in escalating mortification. Picture John flapping his arms and clucking like a chicken while doing laps around a busy public fountain, and you'll get the idea.
At a certain point though, i was clearly getting as much out of his company as he was getting from mine. The greatest thing we shared was a similar sense of humor - so very sweet and rare it is, to find someone who "gets" a very personal part of you. Perhaps my single greatest triumph in tickling him was a parody i wrote of a Chicago song:
http://unboughtsoul.blogspot.com/2011/12/turn-away.html
So we stayed in touch as friends. We were close to the same age. At some point, i began to take comfort in the thought that he would be there for most or all of my life.
And now there's a John-sized hole in me.
All too often, we ascribe a certain universality to how people react to death. But the difference in cultural attitudes toward death over the course of human history, is far more diverse than most of us imagine. Many cultures have defined a person's death not by their biological end, but by the moment when one passes from all memory. In that spirit, i dedicate these words to my friend John, and amend his life dates thusly:
JOHN JONES
1964-?
I've always imagined that i'd break the human record for longevity, which is 137 years. So settle in, sweet John. You may have business in this world for a long time to come.