I had a 42-year streak of never experiencing the death of someone I’m close to, and dammit, it had to be Thanksgiving.
A friend from my writers group called today to tell me that our mutual friend Stewart is dead. He’s been battling three different kinds of cancer and I haven’t heard the details of his death yet, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it was the cancer. (I can see him rolling his eyes now.) He was in such abnormally good spirits the sonofabitch had me half-convinced he’d beat it.
I don’t even know how to describe my Stewart in a way that conveys his complexity. An aging, cantankerous giant of a man, former English teacher, staunch progressive (like protesting, organizing for local politics, and yelling at people on the streets staunch), proud secular Jew and full of jokes about it. He loved taking the piss out of people, and if he sensed you were offended by anything he said it was like blood in the water. He could be a raging asshole at times but it was all this tough exterior masking a complex and deeply feeling person. In his later years he softened considerably after he finally got some therapy. You never knew what Stewart you were going to get on any given day: provocative Stewart, goofy Stewart, or serious writer Stewart. He was an excellent writer who gave excellent feedback.
For ten years I’ve been sharing my unfinished writing with this guy and vice-versa. I still have unread feedback from him sitting in my inbox. It’s hard for me to explain the kind of intimacy that develops in a group like ours where we have shared so much of our writing, which is so deeply personal, that we know each other’s work inside and out, and we know each other’s family drama too, because when you spend every other week drinking and shooting the shit with your favorite people that’s what happens.
I’m very sad he’s gone. It happened so quickly I thought, if things went downhill, we’d all have time to say goodbye. We were going to have our annual Holiday party and he probably wouldn’t make it due to his recent lung surgery, and I was going to say to the others, “You guys, let’s plan a surprise visit to Stewart.” And just last week I asked a friend for his address because I was going to send him the first book of the Expanse with a dark joke about running out of time to read the series.
And I really just thought we had so much more time.
Shortly before his death he made a comment in our Discord group about how overwhelmed he felt by the outpouring of love and support from everyone since he’s been sick, and how it was hard for him to take, and we all told him how loved he was, and it has to be enough, because there are no more chances.
And on the 27th I asked him if he could make our Christmas party on the 22nd, not knowing he was dead. 
One of his last posts to our group, shortly after one of his many surgeries:
Some hospital people have no sense of humor. One anesthesiologist asked what I was there for. I said, “Lip filler, and can you help with these age lines?” No response. Nothing.
That’s my Stewart. RIP.
