Remembering Tom Jackson

I went to Tucson recently on one of those mixed blessing trips: a memorial gathering honoring the life of a dear friend and long-time colleague, Tom Jackson. The memorial occurred on what would have been his 60th birthday. He passed away in August, 2011 after being diagnosed in October 2010 with stage 4 glioblastoma multiforme, the same diagnosis that claimed the life of another close friend, Andreas (I wrote about losing Andreas here).

I don't remember when our paths crossed the first time, but it was certainly at work and I think we were both managers at the time. But our friendship came when we had both stepped out of management into technical positions. We shared a similar responsibilities, but it was (I think) the similarities in our sense of humor that became a true bond.  There were other things.  We both used our middle names. Our birthdays were close together. We shared a sense of irony and a sense of the absurd that just clicked and provided many laughs.  We shared an eclectic taste in music, and he introduced me to such edifying tunes as Mojo Nixon's "Don Henley Must Die" and Ten Wheel Drive's "Morning Much Better".  In a highly competitive environment we managed to maintain a friendly sense of competition.

I was on leave of absence from work when he called me and told me about his diagnosis.  He referred to the brain cancer as another step in our years of competition.  And I think I told him he had once again taken this competition too seriously.  And we cried on the phone.  Because of my experience with Andreas, I knew the statistics. Yet we had hope to beat them somehow.  And he differed wildly (from Andreas) in that his first surgery didn't take away a lot of who he was.  But I secretly worried that the tumor would return.  And it did.  I won't walk through the steps he took all the way, because it isn't that important now.

What matters is that we had a connection and let it grow into something fine.  I was fortunate to have shared some part of the last steps of the walk of this life with him and his family. We got to say what we needed to say and I treasure my memory of him.