RIP Chris

On July 16^th, 2020, a friend, Chris Jacobson, died of brain cancer. He was 39 years old. Chris was diagnosed almost three years prior, and shortly after receiving the devastating news, he had surgery to remove the tumour, and chemotherapy to kill the remaining cancer cells in his brain. This seemed to work, since he was originally given between six months and a year to live; two and a half years later, he was still cancer free. Chris seemed to defy the odds—less than three percent of those with this kind of cancer last two years, and in one of our phone chats, he was at the two-and-a-half-year point and seemed to be relatively healthy. During this conversation, he told me that he and his wife were in the process of selling their condo and purchasing a house, and that he was considering returning to work—these are not things, I thought at the time, that a dying man does. Mutual friends believed that maybe he was on some new and effective experimental drug that was keeping the disease at bay. It turns out we were wrong; the cancer returned in the Spring of 2020, and several months later, he was gone.

 

I’ve known Chris since 2009, when I joined the Eclectic Indulgence Book Club he founded a few years earlier. At the time, I was deep into my PhD studies, and at a certain point realized that constantly reading political science literature, much of it technical and theoretical, was emotionally unsatisfying. I hungered for beautiful stories that spoke to some of the deepest parts of the human soul—love and frustration, relationships, adventure, heroism and tragedy—expressed in aesthetically pleasing prose. But I didn’t know where to start, in part because I was ignorant about literature. I come from lower-working class, uneducated family—my mom, who raised my brothers and I on her own, left school when she was 11 because of the post-war poverty in Southern Italy; I dropped out of high school at 15 years old, and started my university studies at 25, as a mature student, becoming the first in my family to attend post-secondary education. Given this background, there were no discussions about art or literature in my household. And yet I knew that literary treasures existed—I just didn’t know where to start on choosing what to read. 

 

I therefore did what anyone would under similar circumstances: a google search. This led me to the website of the Eclectic Indulgence Book Club. They read only the classics, which was exactly what I sought (meaning no trashy pop fiction, or that other popular genre among many contemporary book clubs, self-helpism). I sent an email, and Chris responded, asking me why I wanted to join. I replied for the reasons outlined above, and he accepted my candidacy. 

 

Eleven years later, I am still an active member, and it was easily one of the best decisions I have ever made. Chris was knowledgeable about the classics, from antiquity to the present, and I decided to read whatever he suggested. Every now and then, he’d ask me: “what do you want to read? As a member, you can propose books”. I replied: “I joined this club so that I can learn about and enjoy the classics, about which I know little. Therefore, I have nothing to propose, and will read whatever you tell me to.” This was my approach for the first four years at least, and after that, as I learned more about great literature, I became willing to make suggestions about what we should read. But the decision to initially rely almost exclusively on Chris’s guidance was the right one. Because of Chris, I was introduced to some of the greatest thinkers in history, some of which had a profound impact on my intellectual development, and, therefore, on my teaching. One in particular stands out: Leo Tolstoy. We read his masterpiece, War and Peace, around 9 years ago, and I have never been the same ever since. (It is timeless work on love, family, triumph, tragedy, pain and loss, while recounting early 19^th century Russian history, particularly the epic battles against Napoleon’s armies. I assign some excerpts to my students when we discuss the French revolution and its aftermath).

 

Before writing this blogpost about Chris, I read the almost 10 years of communication between us, which is recorded on Messenger, because I figured it would be helpful in reminding me about some of his particularities and the evolution of our friendship. The first message we shared was in 2011, and it was about War and Peace; for both of us, reading the text was, in its own way, transformational. We continued to speak about literature frequently, mostly in the form of him giving me advice on what to read, which is exactly what I sought, and our thoughts after finishing the work in question. 

 

A major topic between us—surprise!—was women, and the frustrations of online dating. Some of Chris’s suggestions stand out: be honest about your defects on your own profile, when looking at a woman’s profile “don’t think with your dick”, and work on building a solid and happy life as a single person, which will make you more attractive. These ideas now seem banal, but when we exchanged them in 2012, they were novel and important pieces of advice. 

 

Between 2011 and 2014, we exchanged messages very frequently, often every few days. Things started to change in 2015; by then, we communicated on Messenger every few months, but still on a regular basis. Many things contributed to this. One was Chris’s decision to leave Toronto and move out West, to British Columbia, where he resided until his death. When we lived in the same city, we’d see each other frequently—not only at book club meetings, but even between them. He did not live far from me, and I would often bike to his neighborhood, and we’d hang out at his place, or talk while enjoying some of the beautiful scenery of the Humber river. After he left Toronto, our communication was strictly virtual, on Facebook and Messenger, plus the occasional phone call. Distance, it turns out, weakened the bond.

 

When he announced his diagnoses in 2017, me and other book club members were shocked. He was 37 and did not have an unhealthy lifestyle; it was a reminder that this can happen to anyone, and of how pointless it can be to try to cheat an early death with good diet and exercise. It also occurred when things seemed to be going well for him—my communications with Chris on Messenger indicate that around the period 2013-2014, he was deeply depressed because of estrangement from his family, and a recent break-up. By 2016-2017, he had found a job he enjoyed, had met someone new and was in a happy relationship, and was satisfied with living in Victoria. The devastating diagnoses came shortly after things turned around for the better.

 

When he found out, the doctors gave him very little time to live. It was partly for this reason that me and other members of the book club decided to fly to Victoria, British Columbia, to visit him for the last time. It was February 2018, and by then, he had already had surgery and chemotherapy, and looked very sick—his face was bloated, his speech was slurred, his gaze unfocused—but he was well enough to have visitors. It was an incredibly meaningful and moving experience. I complained, in my usual Southern Italian theatrical fashion, that the book club has gone downhill ever since he left. When Chris was around, we’d read ancient and medieval classics; since he left, most of what we read—the horror!—was from the 19^th century onwards. We also reminisced about some of the more memorable book club meetings we had, including the one on Lolita, Nabokov’s masterpiece (my analysis can be found here), when one person was so upset about the commentary that she left early and decided to never return.

Our final get-together in Victoria. Chris is wearing the orange sweater

Afterwards, on the flight back to Toronto, I wrote in my personal diary that he’d probably last a year; it turns out I was wrong, since he died two and a half years after that memorable meeting. We continued to keep in touch, but infrequently, in part because by then I had already decided to stop being active on Facebook. Chris would frequently share updates on his newsfeed about his illness, but I wasn’t always aware of them because, after 2018, I rarely scrolled mine (my reasons for quitting Facebook can be found here). We still communicated on Messenger every few months or so, and one of our conversations stands out: my suggestion that maybe he’ll beat the odds because of “the success of surgery and chemotherapy”; he angrily replied that his cancer is so aggressive that nothing can save him, and that “chemotherapy is poison.” I changed the subject, and we talked about my recent travels to Paris.

 

About 18 months after this conversation, he discovered that the tumour had returned, and there is nothing he could do except to wait to die. This was in May 2020, and by then, I was planning my trip to Paris. I travelled to the city in mid-July 2020, while Chris was sharing his final posts. (This only confirmed the wisdom of my decision to stop being active on Facebook; it would have been profoundly inappropriate for me to post that I was jetting to one of the world’s great cities for fun and adventure, while Chris was posting about the final stages of a terminal illness). Our last communication was on Messenger, less than a month before he died, and I reiterated something I’ve told him repeatedly in the past: thanks for introducing me to great literature. Me—and indirectly, my students—have benefited enormously from some of the great works I read only because I decided to join your book club in 2009. He replied—his last words to me— “it means a lot that I could make even a tiny difference in the lives of others. Kind of the point, I believe.”

 

RIP Chris.