MY FRIEND BOB

If you're a person of a certain age, you probably have a friend named Bob. You probably have two or three friends named Bob and each Bob, for as common and as humble as their name may sound, has a personality unique unto each one of them. One of my Bobs is famously known in my circle of friends as "Fuck Bob" because he swears a lot. He's a great guy and funny as all get out, but he tends to speak in colourful words.

Today I found out that I lost one of my Bobs. This would be the one known as "Pittsburgh Bob". I met Bob during the early days of the internet. I can't remember how the conversation began, but I remember it was in an AOL chat room for gay folks. We would find each other in evening conversations with women and men all across the country and got to know each other that way. Because it won't come up in another story, I want to tell this silly aside here. We were on late for our time zone one evening and were all telling each other what we did for a living. One of the ladies who was a regular typed that she was a "Nurde", which made us howl with laughter. I immediately typed back, "well, aren't YOU all kinds of fancy? I just tell people I'm a nerd without trying to make it look French or exotic!" She immediately responded back with "A NURSE! A NURSE!", but it didn't matter, Bob and I always remembered her as the "nurde".

Anyhow, that's how our friendship began... on the internet. How modern we were! Despite being in our thirties, which is considered irrelevant and prehistoric in the gay community, we were clearly hip and current with the latest technology and modes of meeting folks. We continued our friendship as the interwebz developed and there was a site called "Out In". He was "Out in Pittsburgh" and I was "Out in Cleveland". Despite being registered in different cities, we all fell under the umbrella of "Out in America", so in a way it was a place where friends could stay in touch, people could read articles, meet people to date or in many cases, people could merely arrange discreet trysts. Bob and I were content with friendship and that's as far as it ever went for us.

Something that I will never forget is that Bob loved that he was Irish. He celebrated his heritage and why wouldn't he? His birthday was on March 17th, more commonly thought of as Saint Patrick's Day. It doesn't get more Irish than that! Bob loved the drum corps and spoke enthusiastically about drumming for them or supporting other drumming groups. He became a little boy when the subject turned to those drums--kind of like the way I get when I nerd out on Star Wars. He spoke lovingly about his family and told me stories about his childhood and it was easy to visualise him as a boy because, well, refer back to the drum corps bit.

I visited Bob a few times over the years. He lived in the "Mexican War Streets" historic area across the river and to the north from downtown. I remember my first car having a heck of a time getting up the incline of the street he lived on. That was pretty amusing. We had a nice visit walking around town, going to bars and restaurants and just having a laugh as we developed our friendship in the analogue.

My next visit with Bob came when I visited Pittsburgh to give support to my cousin. Her daughter was being treated for a serious kidney issue at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre. Bob offered to let me stay with him to help keep things on the cheap for me. As always we had a great time and even went to the aviary, located not far from his home. We had dinner with his friends and went to the old casino by the racetrack and both made out with some modest winnings.

Life got busy and we didn't see each other for years. I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma in 2014 and Bob found himself working through smouldering MGUS, which is generally a pre-Myelomic condition. He was fully diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma in 2018 and I remember many online conversations about the diagnosis, treatments and so forth. In a lot of ways, it took us back to the old days of us having lengthy exchanges online.

It was through a mutual friend that I learnt that Bob passed away on July 3rd. He'd had a cardiac event that was as far as we know, unrelated to our shared cancer. Bob's passing once again fully illustrates "the thing we most expect will do us in will probably not be the thing that ultimately does us in." And of course, for me, it makes sense that it was his heart that was the organ of his demise. Bob's heart was so gigantic that it couldn't be missed.

I will miss that exuberance and effervescent love he had for his life and the people who populated it. And his hugs. Oh, how he could hug!

Thank you, "Pittsburgh Bob" for your friendship and for sharing a journey with me in so many ways. Tonight, I will raise my glass to your Irishness and for making my life brighter.