Memories of my friend Jamie

Jamie and I began our weekly walks on Clapham Common about three years ago. We’d known each other distantly for more than 40 years, but we came close when Jamie came to offer help to us with pain we were suffering over a tragedy with our grandson in Mexico. Jamie had an instinct for helping people, for kindness. Perhaps he’d always had that instinct, but it must have been enhanced by the terrible pain he suffered over the death of Katherine, his first wife, and over a severe illness in one of his grandsons. We would meet outside Starbuck’s in Clapham Old Town, walk across the Common to the West Side of the Common, walk back past the tennis courts to the Pear Tree Café, where Jamie would drink either peppermint tea or a decaffeinated cappuccino and I’d drink a cappuccino. Sometimes Jamie would have a croissant if he’d missed breakfast. We alternated who paid but could never quite remember who had paid last. Then we’d sit outside regardless of the weather for about 30 minutes. We’d then…