Ted (Not Kennedy)
From the day he first showed up here, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with frequent commenter Ted. I have no idea how he found this blog, but it seemed like he came here with the sole purpose of disagreeing with pretty much everything I wrote (or so it seemed to me). In the beginning, we would get into huge, lengthy debates about all kinds of stuff, where we seemed to do nothing but disagree. It was so stark that I initially wrongly described him as conservative. (He was genuinely offended when I did this, as I recall.)
But by the same token, that’s where the “love” part of my “love/hate” relationship came in. Because even though it seemed like I was constantly disagreeing with him, often vehemently, he engaged. He made cogent, intelligent arguments that made me stop and honestly reassess my position. He generally stayed above name-calling and cheap shots (certainly a lot more than I ever did). And he demonstrated that it was possible to get him to change his mind on issues if you argued them well enough and had the facts on your side. More importantly, he demonstrated that it was possible to get me to change my mind.
In time, I learned that he and I have a whole lot more in common than we originally thought — something which, I think, tends to occur frequently when you have rational debates with people and try to keep emotion out of it. And because of this, Ted has acted as a moderating influence, both on me, and on the blog. In short, he has kept me honest, and that’s a good thing.
But over the months during which I befriended Ted, communicating through e-mail, I learned that he was keeping an unhappy secret. Ted did much of his commenting and blogging from Johns Hopkins, where he’s being treated for terminal cancer, before shifting to in-home hospice care. I have no idea what kind of cancer. All I know is that he’s been fighting it for over four years, easily beating a “year to live” prognosis, but still living with the ever-present knowledge that the cancer is going to kill him. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, almost certainly within the next few months.
I’ve been sworn to secrecy on this fact from the moment I learned it, of course. The last thing Ted wants is people to treat him differently out of some misplaced sense of pity. Not long ago, his typing took a turn southward, a fact he readily admitted. What he didn’t want to share was that this happened because he had to have the tip of a finger amputated.
With as dark as his situation is, one would expect his outlook to be dark, but nothing could be further from the truth. Apart from occasionally losing patience with the house trolls, and the sort of “here-we-go-again” fatalism that characterizes most Democrats (he wrote off the Obama campaign as dead at least three times), his outlook remains overwhelmingly positive. He continues to root for his beloved Red Sox. He continues to post and comment, as health permits. He now frets only that he “probably won’t” live to see whether or not Obama wins the election.
As I mentioned above, I got to really like Ted — the “hate” part has long since vanished. It continues to amaze me that we can form bonds over the internet, even with people we’ve never met. I’ve never seen Ted face-to-face, nor have I ever even heard his voice. I’ve never seen a picture, so I don’t even have any idea what he looks like. Yet despite all of this, I consider him a friend.
Sadly Ted died on Saturday, Oct. 18, at the age of 54 55, after a four-and-a-half year battle with cancer. Words cannot describe how saddened we are — and how saddened I am personally — at the loss. He will be missed in ways that he can’t possibly know, and that I can’t possibly express.
[ Disclosure: I'm writing most of this while Ted is still alive. It feels weird and wrong to write an obituary for someone who's still alive, and that weird feeling is part of why I keep dragging my feet on this. Ted told me in the beginning of August that he only expected to make it a few more weeks, and it's mid-September as I write this, and Ted is still alive and kicking. With any luck, this post will sit in the "drafts" queue for a long, long time. I joked that the tiny silver lining in his huge black cloud is that he gets to proofread his own obit. Maintaining his sense of humor, he said "Just be sure the obit references Jefferson, Michelangelo, Plato, George Clooney and Roger Federer." When I asked him why no Red Sox on the list, he said "That would have been presumptuous on my part." Funny til the end. ]
Oh, hell. I’m so sorry to see this. Sorrier to say that I didn’t know him as you did, and had no idea that anything was amiss.
Ted was a good contributor. I imagine he was a good force in a lot of other areas of his life. I am sure he will be widely missed. He will be here, though that’s surely the least important consequence of this sad event.
It sounds like he handled this with a lot of grace and courage. I’m not surprised.
Thanks for remembering him to us.
Wow!
The “things that suck” tag doesn’t nearly cover it. Ted was a great contributor to this site, and it goes without saying that I extend my condolences to his family and frieds, virtual and otherwise. TG’s characterization made me smile, because I was unable to correctly pin Ted when I first arrived here as well. And, although I did not get to know him the way TG did, I saw evidence of all those positive qualities cited in this post.
I really hope you got to see Game 5, Ted! Most of my friends were rooting for Tampa in that series. Some were doing so just because they are Yankees fans first. Others were doing so because of the Cinderella aspect of the Rays’ journey. Still, others were doing so because they were sick of seing Boston dominate professional sports over the past few years. I still was rooting for the Sox, and other than the fact that many of my absolute favorite individual players of all time played in the Bean, I wasn’t exactly sure why. But knowing this, I’m glad I was!
We’ll miss you, Ted.
I’m so sorry. We forget sometimes that we are all still people, despite our differences, that we are all human.
I used to get irritated when I saw Ted’s name on a comment because I knew I was about to read a contrary opinion that was intelligently argued and so could not simply be dismissed. And that in turn meant that any reply had to be thought through, not tossed off with the verbal equivalent of giving the finger.
In other words, it meant work, dammit.
We got into it a few times, and while I did think he was rather too ready to argue by anecdote, i.e., to draw generalized conclusions from individual instances, the exchanges did illustrate the possibility of reasoned disagreement as opposed to shouting.
And in doing so he performed a worthwhile service. You don’t say if he had any family, but if he did, my condolences to them.
My deepest condolences.
I am truly saddened to hear this piece of news. Ted was such an integral part of this blog. His reasoned, in-depth analysis (as well as his tangling with the the trollish elements) was a big draw to this page. His voice will be missed.
My grandfather, a big Mets fan, died in ‘67, and my grandmother would often say one of her biggest regrets was he just missed seeing them win the Series. In a similar vein, it is sad Ted didn’t get to see Obama win the election. But when Obama gets his landslide in November (fingers crossed), I’m sure somewhere Ted will burst into one big smile.
I’m so sorry.
It is truly amazing the bonds we can form over E-mails, blog comments, and IM, without ever meeting people “in real life.” There are more than a few people that I consider friends, despite having never met them in person, and I can only imagine how difficult it would be to lose one of them.
You will be in my thoughts and prayers in this difficult time.
May Ted be remembered with respect, for he earned it.
I just learned of Ted’s blogging activities last night at a celebration of his life in Annapolis. I worked and played with Ted for about 30 years and consider myself very fortunate to have had the benefit of his friendship. As all of you who grew to know him through his writing know so well, Ted influenced and affected deeply and positively everyone he knew. He was very smart and did many things very well. He was a terrific software architect and programmer, a master woodworker, an excellent skier and sailor. He played pool, racketball, softball, squash, foosball, backgammon, bridge, and chess at a very high level. He met and married the love of his life, Sue, late in his life and she was his rock until he died. We all will miss Ted very much. Sue told me he did not get his ballot in time to vote, but he convinced several young friends and family to register and they have all promised to vote for Obama.
Dr. J:
Thanks for taking the time to comment, and to give us some more insight into his life.
I would be interested in collecting his dialog with you and your readers. Is there and easy was to collect Ted’s postings and the related discussions?
Dr. J:
Ted only made a handful of front-page postings, which you can see here. He had only started front-page authoring here in late August.
I’m afraid there’s no easy way to find his comments, other than to slog through the archives. I was able to find a recent thread in which he had one of his many run-ins with our resident troll. (In that thread, the troll posts as “Derf’s Irom,” but he has also posted under then names “Morris” and “Fred,” which is why everyone calls him “Fred” in the thread.) And here’s one where he begs to differ with me.
You can also try this Google search, but for some of the hits, you may have to used the cached version. As you can see, he was a pretty prolific commenter here. So far, I’ve been able to find comments as far back as January of 2006, and I’m sure he’s been around even longer than that.
Dr. J:
After much searching, I’ve found what I believe to be Ted’s first comment at this blog, on December 20, 2005. There, he’s responding to another commenter.
Thanks for the clues. I’ll try to run them down. Appreciate the help.