I have been vaguely thinking off and on during the last month that I needed to get back to my practice of writing about my friends. I put it off because I wanted to finish compiling a PDF of all the original entries. But even that project got shunted down the priotiry list. And so I didn’t get anything new written.
This last week, it all came back to me, as I waited, along with many friends, through the sudden last illness of someone dear to us. Why had I not gotten back to this before, I wondered. And why does it take another death to motivate me? All the things I should have said to Jack when he was alive are now said when he is gone.
Jack Gilbert is one of the friends I made through Premise, and he was one of the original members of that fellowship, so that means I’ve known him over twenty years. How time slides by us!
He had one of those quiet, calm demeanors that convey stability and patience and wisdom. And he had all those qualities in abundance. What you did not expect when you first met him was the impish sense of humor that lurked underneath that presentation of reliability.
Unless you met him at a Christmas party, your first sign of that playfulness would be when you parted from him in a parking lot, at the side of his modest, somewhat older car. Jack had personalized license plates, and they read “YODA 1”. That always made me smile when I saw it. At the early (to me) Premise Christmas parties, Jack would arrive with a bow tie adorned with battery powered lights on it, often an elf hat (which somehow he managed to wear with dignity) and an animal puppet that peeked at other guests from the crook of his arm. For all his quiet reserve, Jack enjoyed being around people and engaging with them.
I eventually became part of a regular screenwriters group that grew out of the Premise fellowship. The Writers Forum had been going a few years before I joined it, and I was impressed by its durability. Jack helped make it so: we usually met at his apartment and we relied on his gentle leadership to moderate our discussions. On those occasions when we met without him, when we sat down for the day’s business, our opening question frequently was “Who will be Jack today?”
He was a committed greeter of domestic animals. He greeted cats and dogs as if he were a born member of their community and not a human intruder. And they responded to him as such.
He was a mentor to many, and a teacher. He was insightful about storytelling. My biggest regret is that I did not nudge him more about his own writing. He felt that he was not adequate, and so did not often put his own work before others. The reality is that although he was encouraging to other writers of all levels of skill, he was a perfectionist about his own work. A harsh one at that, and needlessly, I felt. He was a good storyteller and I should not have let him off the hook.
He loved movies and fly fishing.
He was a shining light of gentleness, courtesy and godliness. A deeply committed follower of Christ, who had no need to proclaim it on the corner, because it infused his every action. He gave his love freely and it was returned to him magnified many times. He was a dear man — valued, precious and rare.
