Rest easy, my friend.

Thanks for the laughs, the friendship, and the memories.

He shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary him, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
I will remember him.

---

My mate Keith died yesterday, peacefully in the early hours. My dear friend in Rotorua, whom I’ve been visiting over the last year as his body declined, has been defeated by cancer; he never stood a chance.

The young boy I grew up with, who shared his love of science fiction with me and made it my own, who loved Dr Who and always quoted Douglas Adams, has gone to the stars.

Keith and I were in Kuirau Park, Rotorua, last September.

His machine, his great mind so full of thoughts, has shut down, never to be restarted. All of his hopes, dreams, and memories are gone, irrecoverable forever, as will happen to us all.

Keith probably wouldn’t like me saying he’d gone to the stars, well, tough luck buddy, because you would’ve pointed out that after you were gone, it didn’t matter because you wouldn’t be up in the stars - you would be gone.

“Soon, I won’t exist” was one of the last things you said to me four weeks ago, on my final visit. It was the only time I saw real fear in your eyes. I will never forget that moment and the feeling that there was nothing I could say, there was no miracle, no reprieve, not even the slimmest of hopes. You were going, and we both knew that nothing could change it.

You were an atheist to the end, not an angry one, but one of quiet surety. A man of science, and you had no time for religion. I cannot imagine there was any last-minute change of heart. I don’t want to think about what your thoughts were at the end; I spend enough time thinking about what mine will be like when it’s my turn.

There is no service, just a viewing and a seeing off from the funeral home. I won’t go.

As my friend Matthew, another of the tight quartet I was closest to through those teen years, said when I rang him to break the news, “I went to see him when he was alive, I’m not going to see him now he’s dead.” I have no desire to go, and doing so won’t help my friend. I suspect it will be very low-key; I’m not even sure his family will attend.

You probably think I’m joking.

On that last trip at the end of March, I chatted with Keith about the visitors he was seeing. I was pleased that he had good, long-term friends there regularly, but shocked to find that his father, sister, and brother, all of whom are alive and in New Zealand, hadn’t been.

So that’s another reason I won’t be going. Because I’m worried I might scream in their faces - “Why couldn’t you love him like my family loved me? Why did you never know where he was when we were kids? Why did he need to come to my house for a family he didn’t have? There’s no excuse, you were well off, comfortable - why the fuck didn’t you love him, like I did?”

But I won’t do that, what would be the point now?

Something I didn’t say when I wrote about visiting Keith this last year was how hard it was.

We hadn’t seen each other much these last thirty years, we’d had different life experiences, and it’s fair to say that my friend had some pretty strong views that I didn’t share. You know the sort - about Jacinda, and Covid vaccinations.

He wasn’t down a rabbit hole; he was far too intelligent for that, and his arguments came with science. But I sure didn’t want to be having arguments on the last visits, though he seemed to need to.

If doing so brought him some satisfaction or gave him an outlet for things he needed to say, then I’m ok with that, but some visits I came away not only distressed at his failing health but also feeling a bit beaten up on matters that I care about, but had no appetite to argue. So I sat and let him vent his rage at the universe at me.

Going through cancer treatment during lockdown must have been bloody awful, although Keith always spoke with humour, albeit very dark, about his medical treatments. As I wrote about in another newsletter, those lockdowns meant that we, the four of us, Keith, Matthew, David, and I, never did re-unite one last time with a surprise get-together for my 50th birthday, which was cancelled just the week before it was due to take place.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression of my visits with Keith; for the most part, spending time together and reminiscing was very positive.

It seems strange to think I won’t return to that house where I’ve been many times this last year. Initially, Keith would greet me at the door, first dressed, then later in a dressing gown and slippers. He would make the tea, his fingers numb from his treatment, and we would laugh over simple things.

Keith and I were in his garden last September.

Later, the door would be ajar, and that voice that I can hear so clearly now would call out for me to come in. I’d make a drink; he was now on the couch. The sun would pour in over his lounge, and we would talk of things I cannot share with anyone now, memories of just we two.

This year, I learned that it was okay to love someone even if you didn’t always like the person they had become. Of course, I cannot say how much of Keith’s anger at the world was related to his illness, but it was clear we weren’t the same people we once had been. Yet those people who we had been were still there, too.

I would’ve found this last year a lot harder without the great love and support I received from my wife, Fi. A man could ask for no more.

Keith and Fi in Kuirau Park, Rotorua. Last September.

Yesterday afternoon, I was joking with our son Johnny and about to take him out for a driving lesson when Fi saw the notification. She came to me and told me quietly, and held me tightly as the sobs rose and then fell.

She came with me on some of the trips down SH1, and it was good for us. We had time to talk or sing along to music and explore places —Keith wasn’t up to long visits.

The kids, too, have been so lovely. They awkwardly ask if I’m okay, because what do you say to someone? But it’s saying it that matters, and I hope that for Keith, even if the words were sometimes awkward, being there and talking was enough. It’s all I could do, and I hope it was okay.

In my mind, we’re seventeen again, lying in the warm grass at my parents’ house, listening to our music, a beer, a cigarette, freedom, and friendship. Laughing and full of life ahead.

Rest easy, my friend. Thanks for the laughs, the friendship, and the memories.

I will love you for eternity, my brother.

---

To end today, here is my favourite piece of music. I’m crying anyway, so why not? Much love to all of you wonderful people. Thank you for your kind words and support over the last year. It means a lot.