Dear Liz and Gil: My heart absolutely breaks for you. I can't imagine what you are going through. Jamie was brilliant. I think immediately of the difficult theater projects he took on, his excelling in chess and debate, and his instinct to create an even playing field for all. At a time in his life when he could have been focused narrowly on his own development, he actively worked to better the wages of Harvard's least well paid employees and he befriended folks who were struggling to fit in. I always admired his restless spirit and his courage to do things differently, like create his own concentration. He was a loyal friend (man, he had some beautiful girlfriends) and for all his health battles did not lose his playful spirit.
I remember you writing when Jamie was on leave during what would have been his sophomore year and sharing news of both your mother and Jamie, saying that your mother's mantra for all tough things she was encountering was "It's for Jamie". What a nice sentiment. I am going to carry that myself and stretch as Jamie did to think less like a bureaucrat and more like a poet, and to consider more often the circumstances of those without privilege and do what I can to treat all with kindness and respect.
I hope we can talk. Afraid to interfere but I'm here and thinking of little else. Hugs, hugs, and more hugs, Tom

But she has lived and still gives life...
Jamie's poem about Paris ends with an image of a little girl holding high a piece of bread "where fluttering sparrows alight to nibble from her hands". Like to think that Jamie is free as the sparrows, not burdened by illness, and connected to those still wandering in the garden, grateful for his life but feeling diminished by his loss.