Some people enter our lives through circumstances we never could have planned, at exactly the time we need them. Jack was one of those people for me.
If you found yourself in Newport Beach on a Wednesday night, Jack was easy to find. He had his chair, and nobody else dared sit in it. Anyone new could introduce themselves, and Jack would dispense whatever wisdom he thought was appropriate. Sometimes it was profound. Sometimes it was practical. In my case, one of his first instructions was simple. Call him every morning at 8:00. Not 7:55. Not 8:05. At 8:00.
So I did. For more than a year, I called Jack almost every morning. Most days he answered and we talked for three or four minutes. Some days he didn’t. That was okay. I called again the next morning. Eventually his health started to slow him down. Our calls became less frequent, although often a little longer when we did connect.
Then his customary morning group texts stopped. After a few weeks, I started asking around. Eventually I got the call that Jack had passed away on July 23, surrounded by friends.
There was something fitting about what happened near the end. When word got around that Jack was sick, his phone started ringing. And ringing. Eventually, there were so many people trying to reach him that he had to turn it off. A man who had spent years making himself available to other people had cast such a wide net that, when everyone tried to be there for him, there were simply too many calls to take.
I will never know how many people Jack helped. I know I’m one of them.
People like Jack leave you with a pretty simple challenge. You don’t have to become them. You just try to do one percent of what they did. Answer the phone. Make some time. Be there when someone needs you. And if enough of us who knew Jack carry even a little of that forward, that’s a pretty remarkable legacy.