Post by gaz on Oct 25, 2020 4:16:02 GMT -5
Richard Trevor Williams lost his very short, aggressive, battle with cancer 2 days ago (October 23, 2020).
I keep thinking that "I'm at a loss for words" but since that thought is riddled with volumes that follow it simply isn't true. As with nearly everyone who may read this, Richard was a 'secondary orbit' to me of Malcolm, and as with so many such things I knew Richard for a multitude of times longer than I knew that which brought us together.
Oddly, while the combined amount of time Richard and I interacted may have been spread out over a six times longer period, in the end it feels as though the two ended up being accumulatively even.
I rarely saw RTW. We met at Malcolm's memorial. We bonded over the Great Unheaving of Malcolm's stuff from the Manchester Avenue apartment, and for the first few years following I interacted with him a lot as he worked through his grieving for what was his oldest friendship, a shadow that was ever-present with us. To be with Richard was to be with Malcolm.
I really don't know how much that was his normal because his sadness would come out when we were together and that often led to my feeling our meetings weren't healthy for him.
And while there were often times I could feel his pre-Malcolm death's self come out as he took delight in sharing his thoughts on a piece of music, or a podcast or youtube channel he was excited by, or a trip he and Deb had just been on, or even just a meal he was preparing, they were short-term things and the shadow would return, if not one of Malcolm than of some other thing.
I came to peace with the idea that the ghosts were there all the time for him and because it was the commonality that brought us together and I never had an issue discussing any aspect of it I may have been one of his only guilt free outlets for dealing with that.
I shouldn't say guilt free because, and I'm smiling as I write this, Richard never seemed guilt free. He used to apologize for going on such and I would tell him not to. There was a charm to his darkness, and it felt less self-serving than poetic. Not maudlinly poetic, the great Irish poets level of poetic.
I will always have a great fondness for Richard because of that.
I used to call him my Toby Zeigler, the West Wing character played by Richard Schiff, a character I love and in my more righteous moments aspire to. I don't know if he understood just how fond I was of Toby, and him. He seemed to accept it with a nod each time so I hope so.
While inertia was the dominant factor in our interactions, and RTW was less responsive after his dad passed away five years ago, over the 15 years that I knew him there were two times we nearly always either met or communicated on:
THE FIRST was Burton Day, the anniversary of the death of the great Welsh actor Richard Burton. For more than 10 years I joined RTW in this remembrance, placeholdereding but not replacing Malcolm, in the annual sojourn downtown. It had begun on the death of Richard Burton, it shifted to a commemorative Burton Day MX History Tour in 2006, and following Peter O'Toole surpassing Burton for "most number of Oscar nominations without a Best Actor win" in 2006 and then Mr. O'Toole's death in 2013 it morphed into the 'Dead Actor's Pub Crawl'.
We weren't able to do this the last few years but provided this Covid non-sense is behind us, we'll be making the effort in 2021 since the 'Dead Actor's Pub Crawl' now has another member.
THE SECOND was September 13th, the anniversary of the death of MX. He would often begin at the cemetery in Brampton, standing at the grave site on the appointed hour of 2pm, reliving the burial and wrestling with the complexity of his history with the occupant both before and after, then he would make his way down to Port Credit harbour where, around 4:10pm, Malcolm passed his own judgement. Of the 15 anniversaries Richard only missed 2. The 13th and this year's.
We'd tried to arrange a meeting earlier this year. There was an item I'd lent him shortly after Malcolm passed away that I needed to get back for a project I wanted to work on, but the timing was off in February, and then the pandemic shut things down, and then life's blender was put on Frappé and now he's dead.
Yikes, that got away from us quickly!
The last time I saw Richard was in the parking lot of Snug Harbour, September 13, 2019. We parted on a hug and I hope with great fondness.
The last time we saw both he and Deb was Burton Day in 2017 (my god how time gets away from us).
Richard's suffering is over. On every front now, and my heart goes out, as always, to those left behind. To Deb, his wife, who must now deal with 'next'. Trudie and I are very fond of her too.
And in the end, I am at a loss...
I keep thinking that "I'm at a loss for words" but since that thought is riddled with volumes that follow it simply isn't true. As with nearly everyone who may read this, Richard was a 'secondary orbit' to me of Malcolm, and as with so many such things I knew Richard for a multitude of times longer than I knew that which brought us together.
Oddly, while the combined amount of time Richard and I interacted may have been spread out over a six times longer period, in the end it feels as though the two ended up being accumulatively even.
I rarely saw RTW. We met at Malcolm's memorial. We bonded over the Great Unheaving of Malcolm's stuff from the Manchester Avenue apartment, and for the first few years following I interacted with him a lot as he worked through his grieving for what was his oldest friendship, a shadow that was ever-present with us. To be with Richard was to be with Malcolm.
I really don't know how much that was his normal because his sadness would come out when we were together and that often led to my feeling our meetings weren't healthy for him.
And while there were often times I could feel his pre-Malcolm death's self come out as he took delight in sharing his thoughts on a piece of music, or a podcast or youtube channel he was excited by, or a trip he and Deb had just been on, or even just a meal he was preparing, they were short-term things and the shadow would return, if not one of Malcolm than of some other thing.
I came to peace with the idea that the ghosts were there all the time for him and because it was the commonality that brought us together and I never had an issue discussing any aspect of it I may have been one of his only guilt free outlets for dealing with that.
I shouldn't say guilt free because, and I'm smiling as I write this, Richard never seemed guilt free. He used to apologize for going on such and I would tell him not to. There was a charm to his darkness, and it felt less self-serving than poetic. Not maudlinly poetic, the great Irish poets level of poetic.
I will always have a great fondness for Richard because of that.
I used to call him my Toby Zeigler, the West Wing character played by Richard Schiff, a character I love and in my more righteous moments aspire to. I don't know if he understood just how fond I was of Toby, and him. He seemed to accept it with a nod each time so I hope so.
While inertia was the dominant factor in our interactions, and RTW was less responsive after his dad passed away five years ago, over the 15 years that I knew him there were two times we nearly always either met or communicated on:
THE FIRST was Burton Day, the anniversary of the death of the great Welsh actor Richard Burton. For more than 10 years I joined RTW in this remembrance, placeholdereding but not replacing Malcolm, in the annual sojourn downtown. It had begun on the death of Richard Burton, it shifted to a commemorative Burton Day MX History Tour in 2006, and following Peter O'Toole surpassing Burton for "most number of Oscar nominations without a Best Actor win" in 2006 and then Mr. O'Toole's death in 2013 it morphed into the 'Dead Actor's Pub Crawl'.
We weren't able to do this the last few years but provided this Covid non-sense is behind us, we'll be making the effort in 2021 since the 'Dead Actor's Pub Crawl' now has another member.
THE SECOND was September 13th, the anniversary of the death of MX. He would often begin at the cemetery in Brampton, standing at the grave site on the appointed hour of 2pm, reliving the burial and wrestling with the complexity of his history with the occupant both before and after, then he would make his way down to Port Credit harbour where, around 4:10pm, Malcolm passed his own judgement. Of the 15 anniversaries Richard only missed 2. The 13th and this year's.
We'd tried to arrange a meeting earlier this year. There was an item I'd lent him shortly after Malcolm passed away that I needed to get back for a project I wanted to work on, but the timing was off in February, and then the pandemic shut things down, and then life's blender was put on Frappé and now he's dead.
Yikes, that got away from us quickly!
The last time I saw Richard was in the parking lot of Snug Harbour, September 13, 2019. We parted on a hug and I hope with great fondness.
The last time we saw both he and Deb was Burton Day in 2017 (my god how time gets away from us).
Richard's suffering is over. On every front now, and my heart goes out, as always, to those left behind. To Deb, his wife, who must now deal with 'next'. Trudie and I are very fond of her too.
And in the end, I am at a loss...