I met my friend Jake in October of 2000 when I moved to Chicago. He was an up-beat show-tune loving copy writer at an agency. And I was moving there to work at an agency.
It’s been just shy of 2 weeks now since Jason died (yes, I say died – as a good friend put it, he didn’t “pass away.” That’s too passive. He went kicking and screaming). And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking; Sharing some here, sharing some with people in person and some only with myself. But the thing I realized this week is that Jason taught me a LOT. For a 29 year old, he sure had his priorities straight.
There’s a lot of debate in the world about how you measure a man – number of friends? Wealth? Influence? Power? No one seems to really land on the right measure. For me, knowing one man for the last 4 years has definitively answered that question.
My friend Jason Schippers died on Sunday. He was 29. After being ill off and on he went into surgery last Friday to try to find a root cause and hopefully correct the issues he was having. Saturday I had a chance to visit him thanks to his very loving family – and talk to him a bit. I even got the chance to tell him I loved him. Talk with him about when he’s better; leaving the hospital. He even tweeted: