my friend Rich

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The news is bad. After improving a little, armoire_man has gotten worse. The cancer is all over his brain now and doing what cancer does. He's in a hospice, and will be for maybe a couple of months. That's it.

In the late 70s, he was one of my best friends. Then, late in 1980, I moved, and after a while managed to lose track of most of the Denver gang. He got in touch with me, but I couldn't keep anything going, and communication lapsed again. In the 90s, we managed to find each other by e-mail, and wrote sporadically. Then we both found ourselves on LJ. So for the last couple of years, I've had this friend back again.

We visited Rich and his family on our last trip out to Colorado, a couple of years ago, and renewed the friendship and met his daughter. I took dim, fuzzy photos of him, and figured there'd be other chances to get better ones.

Of the laser wits who inhabited Denver fandom, he was the gentle one. His daughter is a couple of years older than Sarah, and up to now, has been a useful guide to what Sarah would be doing at the same age. Like Sarah, she's a sweet, funny, actively imaginative kid who's into everything.

I'm a little out of sorts. I can't get to Colorado. I can't do any good here. He's not really up to a phone conversation. I've missed his LJ writing. I finally emailed him a while back, and his reply was sad and scary. Then I was tipped off to a Yahoo group of friends who have rallied to ease the burden on Rich and Carol, and got updated on just how bad things are. Today, one of his friends was able to post to Rich's LJ, so by now anyone who knows him has seen what's going on.

I don't know what else to say.
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