jamie, jamie, bo bamie

my best friend jamie died four years ago today and i really miss him. i can't believe it's been four years since he died. metastatic melanoma, aka skin cancer, at an entirely too young 33 years. it was a very weird day... we were moving into the place we rented on wetzel road in glenshaw that day. jame's sister, gina, called me that evening using his phone, while we were in the toilet paper aisle of the glenshaw giant eagle no less (i've always thought jame would have gotten a chuckle out of that.) i remember seeing the caller id and saying to drew "jamie's died" before i answered the phone, and being so worn out from the week leading up to that day that i couldn't even react right.

but, i was lucky. i was jamie's friend for at least fifteen years and he was was always what a good friend should be: funny, loyal, good about staying in touch and keeping you in the loop about life even if it was kind boring because nothing exciting was happening, and someone i would laugh with until my sides hurt. i got to see jamie that week, on tuesday night, i think (he lost consciousness that night and went into the hospital the next morning), after he'd gotten back from california - the last ditch treatment with a different doctor. if only it had worked even though i knew it wouldn't - and we had a great visit. it was really hard for me, as he looked dreadful, and his mom and step-dad's hearts were just breaking, anyone could see. it was so hard to see and experience but he was still the same old jame. wanting the gossip, even though he was tired, looking forward to when he could eat tomatoes again w/out them wreaking havoc on his system, and setting up physical therapy for later in the week. he didn't go of course, anyone could see he wouldn't be going even if that hadn't been the last week, but jame was having none of it and there is something very admirable in that spirit that refused to surrender.

but...

i don't think he'd approve of me going on and on about my loss, and i could, believe me; not a day goes by i don't think about him. i think he'd approve more of the "jamie, jamie bo bamie" stuff, which is why i gave this post that title. some of the most hilarious times i had with jame were:

homecoming night of his senior year, 1988. i was his date that year - he'd left it too late to ask the girl he had his eye on - and he was also the chairman of the choir float, which basically meant he was working on maybe two hours sleep a night for the entire week leading up to homecoming. so off we go to dinner and the dance, the choir float won and jame and i did a celebratory dance to "lady in red" (remember that one, children of the eighties?) afterward we went to our friend amy's house. jame proceeded to pass out on the floor of her family room and when it was finally time to go home it took our combined efforts to wake him up. so what does he do? he grabs his docksider shoe and walks into the powder room with it, then comes back and i think he sat down. amy and i were just dying of simple chronic hilarity... it was so funny... he had no idea what he was doing. we go into the powder room and he'd set his shoe on the sink! i seriously thought we were going to pee our pants, and of course jame found all this laughing really annoying, even though he had no idea we were laughing at him. he was so embarrassed when we told him the story, too. ah, youth!

and... thanksgiving, the year before he got diagnosed, so that would have been 1997, 98? he came down to berkeley and were were cooking away. my dog, zinger, had her doggie bed in the back by the deck and when the doorbell rang she would bolt out through the kitchen to go see who it was. well, she had so much speed going that when she went to make the turn into the hall she started slipping on the linoleum, but her feet kept going and it took her a full twenty seconds to accomplish the turn, all the while looking like something out of a cartoon. jamie and i were laughing so hard we forgot about the asparagus we were steaming and ruined it, but it was totally worth it. to this day thinking about it makes me laugh out loud.

and... kennywood, my senior year, so 1987. we all went for the school picnic, the usual suspects: darcy, amy, ted, me, jame, christie and maybe even a few more. ted won this penguin and it was kind of overstuffed and funny looking. jamie pokes at it and says "he's stuffed to the gizzards!" stuffed to the gizzards really hit darcy's funny bone, hard, and she proceeded to laugh about it for the rest of the day. not giggle, but full out belly laughing, and this phenomenon continued for several years. all you had to say was "stuffed to the gizzards", no matter how completely out of context, and she'd lose it. he never said so, but i think jamie was secretly tickled at how much it made darcy laugh, and of course we all got many hours of enjoyment out of it.

last but not least: singing that song from sesame street with jamie, the "ma num a num" one. you know, ma num a num, beep beep bedeepity, ma num a num, beep beep de beep". i'd forgotten about the bridge part of the song, the middle part that i'm not even going to try to phoneticize here, so i stop singing and jame just starts belting it out, top of his lungs... it was great. and i always think of him whenever i hear or sing that song ever since. hearing jame belt it out like that, at the best of his goofy form, was a real treat indeed.

so... here's to you, jamie! i miss you, my dear, and love you, and know we'll meet again some day (and if we don't i will be so seriously pissed off it'll be good that i'm dead or i'd probably kill somebody.) we can have some more stuffed to the gizzards laughs then, and just imagine the gossip that we'll have to catch up on. i expect there will be lots of simple chronic hilarity to go 'round. :)