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Alston Adams 1974–2010

We met, oh, six years ago? at a YULblog meeting. He was young, social, full of life and angry. Our names sounded sort of the same. I’m the oldest of five, he was the youngest of five. He was in an interracial relationship, I’m from a mixed-race family. We had little in common but there was a feeling of kinship anyway.

Three years ago he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.

Two weeks ago we took him for a drive in the country. We thought that sitting in the car being driven around would be about all the activity he could handle, and as it turned out we had overestimated him.

His goal was to make it to his 36th birthday, which would have been November 8th.

He didn’t make it.

You know what they say about doing whatever it is now, not putting it off because there may never be a later? Yeah. What they say.

Carpe diem.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 4th, 2010 at 15:40 and is filed under Alston, anger, death, illness, motivational, reality check. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

5 Responses to “Alston Adams 1974–2010”

  1. Martine Says:
    October 4th, 2010 at 16:10

    Yeah. What they say indeed.

  2. Kate M. Says:
    October 4th, 2010 at 16:50

    Thanks for letting us know.

  3. alison Says:
    October 5th, 2010 at 09:08

    Other posts about Alston:
    The Blork Blog
    Zura Rants
    chicagoan in montréal
    ni vu ni connu
    Utopia Moment
    Shatnerian
    i.never.nu
    Montreal City Weblog

    Also see:
    Alston Adams on Facebook
    Sending you good vibes, Alston on Facebook
    alstonadams on Twitter

  4. zura Says:
    October 5th, 2010 at 12:09

    Life is short, as they say, best to live it fully.

  5. alison Says:
    October 5th, 2010 at 14:04

    Cached text from http://www.youngadultcancer.ca/survivethrive/

    Alston talking about the “July 11-23, 2009 – Owyhee River Kayaking Expedition, SE Oregon, USA” trip he went on, organized by YAC.

    Until May 1, 2007, I led a trite and meaningless existence. Just kidding. Until that date, life was pretty great in most ways. I had just started a new and interesting career in video games. And then…well, you know what happened then. The details: esophageal cancer. One of the worst ones, and unusual for someone that was only 32.

    This is a bio, which normally means that it is very much of a compilation of who you are and what you’ve done. It’s part character sketch and part CV. But unlike many other major events in life such as marriage, first child, etc., this one tends to obliterate your life B.C. (before cancer). The effect of this is that UI and many others focus much less on the past and put more emphasis on the future, but especially the present. And that is why I am going to travel for 2 weeks on the Owyhee River with others like me.

    This trip is an opportunity to make an impact in people’s live right now. Instantaneously. People around me are organizing themselves in order to realize something they believe in. I personally am reminded of my vitality and ability to contribute to something important to society. And it gets me out of the limbo of uncertainty that surrounds people my age hit with some serious disease.

    I am a man, alive, relevant and vital. I am here, right now.

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