More than seven years after my dad passed, I often think about the words KG generously posted as a tribute to his former coach and longtime friend. I am reticent to return the gesture knowing I can’t and won’t be as eloquent as he, but trying is a solemn, sacred duty.
RIP Gene Goll.
If you’d told me during the summer after graduating high school I’d earn money by being commissioned to paint an entire house with my friend Kevin, one my dad’s basketball players and a lefty pitcher for whom I was essentially a designated courtesy runner, I’d tell you I hardly remember any of it due to the oil-based paint fumes.
But apparently that is how I spent a goodly portion of the summer, most of which was consumed discussing protestants and Catholics, The Boss, and baseball, like old men in a deli. Even better, his jovial mother Hilary and acerbic-witted father Gene welcomed me into their daily existence.
They eventually, mercifully released us from the back half of the job due to family travel plans, as well as some reluctance to continue bleeding hundreds of dollars in supplies, seeing any flat-planed surface covered in molecular ceiling paint particles, witnessing the mass slaughter of brain cells from aforementioned oil-based cabinet paint exposure, enduring yards of torn sheetrock lining from paint rollers, and a few other odds and ends.
Thus my painting career ended early, but my friendship with the Golls stuck like primer. There was a wholly unwarranted patience and bemusement that I now realize was likely Gene and Hilary realizing they were paying for a half-assed paint job and a lifelong friendship.
And to know Kevin (or Karen and Brian) is to know Gene. All in their own way analytical, bemused, principled, deeply caring. I’ve never seen a dad leave a stronger imprint upon his children. We are all the better for it.
I saw Gene only a few times in recent years but know in my bones he loved them all to his last day. He and my dad differed in innumerable ways, but Gene reminded me greatly of him in that regard. There is no higher compliment I can pay to a man and father than that.
Cancer is a cowardly disease, leaching life from our most vibrant. But it also illuminates: a subtle glow, clock hands — the time given to appreciate someone, to care for them, and to articulate our love to them before the darkness draws. Its cowardice in taking time to steal someone spurs us to be mindful, to appreciate all we are have and to give the same freely to others.
Our time is short. Gene’s time has run out. Shine brightly until yours is up.