Richard Rushworth passed away this evening around 6 o'clock. He'd been in the hospital for a week and I didn't know. I was on the phone this evening with Allan, half consoling him, half trying to convince him that he should not feel guilty for not being right there by his side at the end, to say goodbye to probably his closest friend.
We knew Richard would not be able to survive his bouts with illness for too much longer. But we're still sad to see him go, especially Allan, understandably. I just went through some of the e-mail conversations Richard and I had, and looked at photos I'd taken of him with the kids on some of our visits. I told Allan we should go to Raf's for fish and chips on Sunday at Crescent Beach, because that was Richard's favourite thing. He really looked forward to when I would drive out there with the bambinos and we would split a massive piece of halibut and chips. I'm glad Richard introduced me to that place and we were able to shoot the ocean breeze together over a mutal love of Raf's tartar sauce. Even if he had tubes up his nose and the kids had ketchup smeared all over their little faces. There is something still very poignant about that, and the image is imprinted indelibly in my mind.
I've been studying the philosophy of life and death since September, and I think the academic approach has made it easier to deal with those two subjects. I've thought about it a great deal while reading the texts and writing three papers. At the very least, I felt I had something constructive to say to Allan to help him feel better about missing out on an opportunity to say goodbye, even though I didn't get this idea directly from readings or discussions. I compared it to the phone call we were on -- I told him the goodbye isn't so important, it's the hello and the conversation you had beforehand...
Melissa and Michael harassing Richard.
