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| Jim Simone |
I just found out a few minutes ago that COVID-19 has claimed the life of one of my good friends, Jim Simone. Despite having learned to live with all the isolation, the masking, and the nagging fear that the virus is always somewhere nearby, it didn't all really seem real to me until today. I know that's silly because Jim's untimely death doesn't make the virus any more a threat today than it was yesterday.
But somehow, it does. It's real now.
Jim Simone was part of an unofficial McDonald's breakfast club that we accidentally started almost two years ago, a bunch of retirees who gathered at McDonalds most mornings to help solve the world's many problems. Little did I know what we were starting the first time I told Jim "Good Morning" as I took the table across from his. We got to chatting that day for almost an hour, and we enjoyed the conversation so much that we started slowly gathering other lone diners around us. In just a few months, we had an ever-shifting group of six or eight guys to help us figure out what everyone else in the world but us was doing wrong. They came and they went, but we could always count on at least half-a-dozen of us to show up on any given morning.
Jim expressed many times how important the group was to him because, having lost his wife to cancer a few years earlier, we were sometimes the only people he talked to all day long. He was very proud that our simple greeting had blossomed into a group that included whites, blacks, hispanics, men, women, white-collar retirees, and blue-collar retirees. Truth be known, not all of us were even retired yet. Some of the not-quite-so-regulars just stopped in for a quick chat and cup of coffee on their way to work once or twice a week.
Having spent hundreds of hours chatting with Jim in those two years, I learned a lot about him and he learned a lot about me. Jim was a New Yorker by birth, having grown up on Long Island, and he could be blunt sometimes, a tendency that he laughed about as much as we did. He still had that New York accent despite having lived in Houston for something like forty years, an accent I never thought I would miss, but now know that I will.
We were free with the advice to each other - not that we necessarily ever followed any of it - and we were always willing to listen. I took him to two different eye surgeries and watched him charm the doctors and staff there, too. He could do that.
Jim Simone was a good man, a big part of my life after retirement, and I'm going to miss him greatly. Rest in peace, my friend.
Oh Sam, I am *so* sorry. This is sad beyond measure. I loved reading about how you met and created a chat group in McDonalds, I think that's wonderful, I'm just so sad that it has this kind of ending. Be reassured that you made a lot of difference to Jim's life and I'm sure he appreciated your companionship. RIP.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Cath. I'm still finding it impossible to believe that he could be gone so suddenly. Our last conversations, on the phone, were usually about the best ways for people our stage to stay safe until this was all over.
DeleteJim was using the time to organize a huge downsizing in his housing so that he could begin to enjoy the rest of his life when we got the all-clear from doctors. It's all very hard to process.
So sorry Sam, a beautiful post.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Diane. He was a good friend, even if it turned out to be for so short a time.
DeleteSorry Sam - a beautiful tribute to your friend! I lost a good friend recently also. He was a member of my Bible study group which met every Friday at the Toasted Yolk in Conroe. I feel and know your pain!
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that you've lost a friend, too, Don. It seemed for a long time that the virus wouldn't claim anyone I knew personally. Than I started hearing about friends of friends getting it...and now this. This thing is not going away quickly, and I don't think our world will ever be the same.
DeleteYou actually, I think, met Jim at that bluegrass festival we all attended in Tomball a year or so ago. I think you two were there briefly at the same time.
I'm so, so sorry about your friend!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Lark. It's all I can think about even today. Last time we talked it was all about him packing up his house, selling the things he didn't need anymore, and finding a smaller place to call his home base. We spent hours talking about places around us and comparing pros and cons, etc. He was looking forward to so much.
DeleteI love the idea of your breakfast club becoming a community, and I'm so sorry for the loss of your friend. As real as we believe the threat to be, it is the personal loss of a friend or loved one that stuns the senses.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly right. Until it happened to someone close to me, I could still kid myself that it wasn't going to happen to anyone I knew personally. I'm still breaking the news to a few people from the group as I track them down, and they are all pretty much stunned by the realization that it's finally happened to one of our own.
DeleteThis is such a lovely tribute, Sam! I'm very sorry to hear of your loss.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, JoAnn. I'm still thinking about all the things we had planned for the summer in getting him prepared for his big move into a smaller home or apartment. He had barely started the process when this hit him out of nowhere...
DeleteI'm so sorry to hear this, Sam. What terrible news. I'm still at the stage where it's only happened to friends-of-friends, but I have a sense of dread that before this is all over, everyone will have lost someone, whether friend or family.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jeane. I'm afraid that you are right about where we are headed before all of this is finally over. Do take care.
DeleteSo sorry for your loss, Sam. I get what you're saying, too - COVID didn't feel real to me until we lost an extended family member because of it. I wasn't close to him like you were to Jim, but still, he was someone I knew personally. His sudden death made the seriousness of the pandemic hit home in a way that others hadn't. Such a sad time in the world :(
ReplyDeleteAnd it just seems to go on and on and on. Some kind of end-date prediction, even it not entirely accurate, would be comforting right now. Sorry for your loss, Susan. When I think of the 140,000+ people who have died from the virus, none of it seems real. But when I think of Jim's one death, it seems very, very real. That's crazy; but it's true.
DeleteThis was beautifully written. Such a kind, caring tribute to him. I hope you still meet with the others. My husband meets, usually once a month, with three men he used to work with, and he enjoys these get-togethers very much.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Nan. I'm sorry to say that since I posted this about Jim, two more of the regulars have become COVID-19 victims, one of my hispanic buddies and one of black guys we all loved. I find it ironic, in this time when racism is the main media narrative, that our small group lost someone from three different racial groups. And I miss all of them.
DeleteWe have not yet met in person again, but because the virus claimed three of the four closest to me, I'm finding that I kind of dread that first time back.
Oh, Sam, I am so very sorry. This is just awful.
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