I left off last time with our return from Kansas. I had just also received what would be my final communication from Fred.
I sent him several notes after that. He didn’t reply. I phoned his number and left messages. Again, no reply. Finally, after playing detective for longer than I care to admit, I tracked down his brother...who, it turned out, had been looking for me as well, and for others of Fred’s small stock of long-time friends.
He told me that he was with Fred at the hospital. Fred was not conscious. He was not in pain. But ...his story was coming to an end. I wrote back something...the kind of meaningless response you send in answer to such communications.
Then I waited.
I didn’t have to wait long. A few hours later, Fred’s brother let me know that he had passed.
It had been just nineteen days since Fred had found out that he “might” have ALS...a diagnosis now confirmed beyond any shadow of a doubt. The disease had moved fast. Maybe that was a good thing. There was no lingering. No two to three years of increasing disability. No doubt. No fear. No question. Just...gone.
For a few days, I grieved. I also wrestled with questions. I had to ask myself what he’d felt in his last few days. I’ve not gone into detail here, but I knew he was not a happy man. He was, moreover, a very lonely one. I had to wonder what he felt about his passing, and its timing, coming as it did just before he’d planned to return to his boyhood home, where he would have been (at least) near his brother and his brother’s family.
I also wrote. I did a 28 page, 13,000 word piece about him. I explored the history of our friendship. I guess it was a friendship. I tried to understand his personality. I tried to come to some conclusions about his fate, and how unkind it had been to him.
I suppose I’ll try to get it published some place. Probably it won’t be picked up. The piece is too long, too personal...and, alas, the lives, and the deaths, of non-celebrities are not big sellers in this day and age. I suppose I’ll just have to publish it myself. Or I’ll post it to one of my websites. One way or the other...
One thing, though, I am glad of. If he had to go, at least...in his last few days...I was able to send him those pictures of Winfield. Because he seemed to enjoy them.
I think...I think...*that* was the world he really wanted. That little Kansas town, in the midst of the Great Plains, surrounded by a vast, nourishing landscape of wheat and corn and so much else ...a place of, well, call it serenity...the world of his grandparents, the world of people who had treated him well and with kindness...as, I fear, few people had in his life.
I think he very much wanted to be someplace where he might have had some sort of human contact (not just, as with me, via the internet), and where he might have some sense of belonging. Where he might rediscover himself...find himself...while he walked unimpeded among the late flowers and the early apples...at some farm stand...across the street from a Barbecue restaurant that smelled of meat and wood smoke.
Therefore...
I don’t know if there is a life after death. But, if there is, then I hope Fred’s is like that. I hope that we each have a heaven designed to our personal preference. And that his is akin to Winfield, or Newkirk, or somewhere like them...
So...farewell, “Fred,” my old friend whom I do not call by your real name. May your travels be swift, and your destination be full ...of lakes, and windmills, and wheat fields, and cloud swept skies, and ancient Art Deco buildings, and stained glass windows...
...and small town smiles.
All of them true, all of them kind, and all seen just at the moment of sunset.
On a golden afternoon.
About the photo: Just one today. This is a sunflower, obviously, which seems fitting for Kansas. It actually isn’t a shot from Winfield. Rather, I took this in Georgetown, and I was amazed later to discover that I’d captured a bee in flight. But, as I say...flight, beauty, sun...those feel right for this situation. So, Fred, old friend, may your voyage be swift, and your welcome warm.
Copyright©2025 Michael Jay Tucker
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