John F. Dalton

Although we were the same age, by the time we met in cyberspace I could see JD’s body was already being whittled away. The superfluous was being eliminated. All that was left were the initials: JD. Like a memory carved into the trunk of a tree in Tullamore. JD hearts ❤️ AA. The proportion of breath to body, soul to flesh in him increased over the year we shared. The year of living contagiously. By the end, he was pretty much all spirit. Breath blew through him like a whistle. Whenever I heard him share in here, in this non-physical realm of pixels and sound waves and quantum leaps, the strength of his spirit outshone and eclipsed his dwindling flesh. He had become enthusiasm incarnate. He shouted his love from the rooftops. He was a fool for love! Head over heels for AA. AA ❤️ JD. I never heard him complain. He never came into these rooms to dump his shit and expect others to deal with it. There must have been shit & pain & sorrow & grief but I never saw or heard it expressed by him. JD’s last words to me were in a text written March 1st, a handful of days before he died. “Its a tough one C. Thank you”. Its a tough one, so what? He was a tough guy! A biker, for Christ’s sake! In this program we take the tough with the tender; they go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. Tough and tender, body and soul. But what we learn, what we hope, what we aspire to say as we expire is what JD said at the end of that text: THANK YOU! May we all learn to say those words as well as him . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.