John Lavery post-memorial/wake note:

A note by Steven Heighton, read in absentia at yesterday's memorial/wake for John Lavery [see my obit for him here]:

For years, John and I, who both loved to run (I mean it made us feel good, alive, like suffering yet vital creatures)--for years John and I had talked about getting together for a long run.  Next time I go out for an hour with my dog in the woods north of Kingston, I'll imagine John's with us, and as I pant and chuff and stumble along, trying to keep up, he'll chastise me, in impeccable French, for misconjugating a Spanish verb in one of my novels, and I--after telling him again how I felt about his prose--I'll give him shit, in crude English, about leaving us with just one novel, about leaving us with too few short stories, about leaving us here to raise a pint in his honour without him.  About leaving us.