As this season sets in, the weather is often ushered by very early sign of fall. Or I should say it used to be. The global warming changes such subtle sign. It is still fiercely hot in the daytime. However, in the shades, there is gentle cooler breeze coming through.
Yesterday afternoon, pulling the weeds in the front yard, I remembered of those friends who have already passed away. Jim K9JWV was one of them in my memory. I had often met on 40m in our early evening until it ended with his death probably 6 years ago. He was teaching at a college some subject which I could not recall or even never asked him about. He was running QRP, possibly 10W, into a full sized quarter wave vertical. It has put out incredibly loud signal from the West Coast into Japan. It always excited me a lot while he also enjoyed such a QSO so much. We sure shared the pleasant history of amateur ham radio when it was shining with such a small set ip. It might be due to the grey line path but his vertical, I used to use the same antenna in '60s, was dedicating to his great signal for sure.
One time, he told me he had had lung cancer. Not too long before he also told me the cancer invaded spine. He was hopeful for the effect of a new drug, possibly, an immune check point inhibitor. In a few months, a sad news from him followed, which told it was of no use to him and he was going into a hospice soon. It meant he won't be on the radio any longer. He told it would be only a couple of months until he finished his journey in the world.
It was quite tough for me to say something to him in that situation. For a person confronting to death, any words of ordinary encouragement is meaningless. Wondering if it is courteous or not, I told him to listen to St. Matthews Passion by JS Bach if he was interested in classical music. As already written somewhere in this blog, Toru Takemitsu, a famous composer, used to listen to it and praised it as a stunning work a day or two before he passed away. I have believed it was a music which could go side by side with us in such a situation.
He has simply answered he would look for a source of that Passion.
It was the last correspondence with him. No further news from him. I often wondered how he had lived thereafter.
Our lives are journey with an end but never last too long. In youth, it was a dreadful truth. But I feel, getting older, it is becoming a kind of relief to me, even though I might still get scary at the reality.
The breeze coming through this magnolia tree has made me recall of such an old friend as Jim.
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