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A FEW DAYS AGO, JUST HOURS before the last descent into the tubes and monitors of the ICU, Jack and I had a Scotch, his last, and in response to a comment he overheard about his condition,
he said dryly in an already crackling voice, "I am a fascinating case." The last thing you want to be, he said on another occasion, is an interesting case for your doctor.
Fascinating or interesting are not words that come to me when I think of Jack. His memory is attached to moments and roles in which I have experienced his presence. My memory of him is of a friend, a man with his family and my family, in the web of all the roles in which he cut an impressive figure—teacher, healer, colleague, team-member in many years of joint purposes.
His sudden absence is numbing, the readjustment is constricting and impoverishing. Life goes on, of course. But having a Scotch, borrowing one of those awful menthol cigarettes he was so fond of, sitting quietly, feeling connected and relaxed, that simple equation is only a memory now.
My first encounter with Jack was as a candidate at the White Institute. He taught a course at his home. Those were good times, a time of learning a profession and learning the American ways in my new country. I thought that Jack's grand finale for the course with a magnificent buffet was such a wonderful example of these American ways I was eager to learn. That was the beginning of a long series of small ways I incorporated into my life which had Jack's imprimatur. When I saw that Jack had a dish of candies in his waiting room, I thought that was a swell idea. I have had one ever since. The list is long.