Jim White

This morning I received a phone call that my good friend Jim White had committed suicide last week. I am in shock. I wish I could go back to hug him and tell him that the rough patch of life he was dealing with would get better. I want to yell at him and slap him for giving up...for not believing in himself and those of us around him. I should have tried harder to go visit when he called last month. I should have reached out more to let him know he wasnt alone.

I want to cry.

I met Jim through our shared occupations as pottery studio owners. We even served on a board together but Jim wasnt willing to pound his head against the brick walls that the position required so he respectfully abdicated his throne. We stayed friends...there was no way NOT to be Jim's friend. I wrote a blog once about amazing men in my life and Jim White was truly one of the best. I was lucky to be his friend...my life is richer for knowing him and now poorer for the loss....

He was a truly unique soul...full of life and more than once my Guide off the beaten path. When my daughter got a scholarship to Mizzou, Jim was my connection in MO. He'd pick me up from the airport in St. Louis and we'd start what should have been an hour long trip to Columbia. We never made it in less than 5. Jim showed me parts of Missouri that not even most residents of the Show Me State ever saw. He had a map in his car that he highlighted with all of the streets he had traveled. He wanted to get to them all eventually.

He insisted on stopping at stores that advertised MO. products. He lived locally and bought locally -- that was a personal motto.

When Jim talked to you, he said your name alot. And when he said my name he usually did it with a sort of giggle like I amused him. He certainly amused me.

When we were in SF at a convention, I learned that he collected vintage postcards and had a national park passport which he got stamped when he traveled. I teased him for being a geek. He got even by dragging us all to the park.

He loved a girl... with his whole heart and soul. It made him immensely happy and ultimately too sad. She called him stupid at a phone booth the day they met and he was a goner. He always smiled when he said her name.

There are one-on-one Jim White moments that I will carry with me from here. Jim's own personal stamp on my life's passport: the squirrel that scared me in the Jesus tomb.... jumping on his bed in a SF hotel like unruly children... free church postcards... girl boots... Nelly on 11... golfballing the dog... laundry smell advice... messages in bottles... long talks about life's journey...driving thru SL when the Cards qualified for the Series... that train track bar I cant remember the name of... a cutting board (made in MO of course) that is in the SHAPE of MO (of course)...

And... now... i cry... I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, Jim... I will always miss you, my friend...