Jamibu was a very good friend of mine. There was one time
when I probably knew him better than anyone. It’s been a long time since we
were that close, but that kind of friendship leaves its mark. Jamibu was a good
man; he had many friends and touched many people’s lives. He was also far too
young for life to be taken from him. He had been ill for a long time, but that
doesn’t ease the burden.
I met James Bullock, though he will always be Jamibu to me,
at University, at the Science Fiction Society. I am almost certain he was the
one who signed me up, but my first proper memory of him was in the second week
of term; we were stood in a group outside Hugh Stewart bar having one of those
getting to know you conversations. He introduced himself as Jamibu and my
friend John told me I should call him Strawberry, because it would wind him up.
I never found out why he hated the nickname so much.
I lived with him, for almost two years. There’s a certain
level of friendship attained by seeing someone in their slippers and dressing
gown with not much underneath almost every day for that long. A certain level
of friendship and ease that is never really lost.
He was delightfully good fun to wind up, which is a trait in
friends I find quite appealing, whatever that says about me. He was always so
wonderfully easy to talk to. We talked about everything; sci fi, romance,
science. I told him some of my deepest darkest secrets, and he told me some of
his. There are some things I know about that man that I don’t know how many
other people know. He was the person you needed if you wanted advice on new
tech, or maybe just a good (really bad) pun. He got me eating eggs after a
lifetime of hating him. He urged me to push my boundaries, to go outside my
comfort zone.
When I say I went through hell when he got diagnosed with
cancer, I’m not really using much hyperbole. Only a few people know that I
spent some time in counselling because of it. I couldn’t cope with learning
cold, clinical facts about cancer drugs while my friend was living the
realities every day. I couldn’t deal with the idea that I might lose him. It
almost cost Sam and I our relationship, but I’m glad it didn’t. Jamibu would
have never wanted that.
I have been remarkably lucky in my relatively short life, to
have been relatively untouched by death. I’ve always been somehow removed from
the deaths I’ve known, either by time or by distance. This is the closest it’s
come and I’m dreading the day death comes closer than this.
When I found out that Jamibu had passed away, I have to be
honest, my heart clenched but I wasn’t that surprised. I knew he’d been ill and
the mental preparation had been made long ago and stored away. So for a while,
I was alright. I had a few drinks in his honour, and gave my energy over to
worrying about Sam. Part of me felt that it was some sort of elaborate hoax, some
sort of horrific joke and I’d see him pop up on social media somewhere. Rationally
I knew that people don’t kid around with shit like this but it had been a long
time since I’d seen him every day, so his absence didn’t hurt, it just made it
feel unreal.
Telling people made it harder, made it feel more real, and
it started to hurt. Sometimes I’m fine, and he’s just a constant thought in the
back of my mind. Most of the time it’s like there’s a dull ache in my chest.
Sometimes, depending on where I am, what is happening and who has said what,
the dull ache deepens to an almost physical pain in my chest. There are times
when it feels like a wound, raw and bleeding. It hurts, but I have not yet shed
any tears. I worry about whether that means I don’t care, but it’s entirely
possible that the tears will fall during or after the funeral. It might also be
something ridiculous in six months’ time that sets me off, I really don’t know.
I think human beings have a tendency to focus only on the
good traits of a person after they’ve died, as if including their personality
flaws somehow constitutes speaking ill of the dead. I don’t see it that way;
Jamibu was a wonderful person, but he had traits that I didn’t like, disagreed
with or that wound me up. And I don’t think it is disrespectful if I talk about
the flaws that he had, quite the contrary; I believe it disrespects the man
that he was to ignore the fact he wasn’t perfect. I loved that man, but at times I also hated
him, because he wasn’t some paragon of humanity. He wasn’t a bland action hero,
he was a human being. I want to remember the whole person, as much as I can,
for as long as possible.
To preserve his memory, I have done the best thing I know; I
have memorialised him in my skin, in tattoo form. I had it done on Tuesday, a
week to the day since his passing, which I thought was fitting. I was scared
about getting it done, because although I have a number of tattoos already,
this is the quickest I’ve gone from idea to actually getting it done, but it
felt right. It is the perfect way to preserve his memory for me, and I just know
he’d be amused (and playfully annoyed) that I have chosen to immortalise him as
a strawberry.
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| My tattoo at a few hours old. Elvish lettering saying Jamibu with a strawberry underneath |
One of the things that makes me saddest about his death is
that I cannot share the strong faith he had. In fact, his passing to me
provides evidence that the God he believed in does not exist. I wish it were
otherwise. I don’t have faith or prayers to offer to those who loved him. But I
do have hope. I hope that he was right and I was wrong, and that he’s up there
somewhere being extremely exasperated at me for my choice of tattoo. I hope he
was right so that one day we might meet again and he can say “Really Tonks, a strawberry?”
Until such a time as I can claim to have
faith, I will keep this hope close to my chest.
Jamibu’s passing was sad, and tragic, but I think it is a
testament to the man he was how his friends have banded together for support,
especially those who knew him through Sci Fi. His life and death touched a
great many people and we are all doing our best to support each other in this
trying time. Last night we held a minutes’ silence at the AGM, a beautiful and
fitting tribute. I’m proud of the way we’ve all come together to support each
other, and I know he would be too.
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| James 'Jamibu' Bullock 1987-2012 "I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar." |
