A tribute I wrote on September 16th, 2016 following the passing of one of my best friends. I ended up reading it at his memorial service a few days later.
Today, I said goodbye to one of my best friends. I try to fancy myself as a writer of sorts, yet words are completely failing me in this moment to adequately describe the loss suffered today by Todd's family, friends and anyone he could have come into contact with in the future. Todd has always been one of the rarest of souls who never took any person or moment of his life for granted. He appreciated every second of every day and he made sure everyone around him who he cared about knew the fullest extent of his friendship, passion or concern for them.
Then he got sick.
While a serious illness often causes someone to re-evaluate his priorities and look at life with a new set of eyes, Todd never had to do that because he already had his priorities straight and didn't need a tragedy to open his eyes to the wonders in his life. The cancer that nearly killed him was not an eye-opener, it was an opponent. Todd never, ever shied away from a fight that was worth fighting (and, okay, a few that were not necessarily so...) and he tackled the new challenge with the same positive exuberance and confidence that he tackled everything. He was going to kick cancer's ass and get back to his wife and kids, no ifs, ands or buts about it.
He succeeded. It was a long and physically taxing journey, but Todd was cancer-free after years of treatments, all the while never once losing the sense-of-humor and aw-shucks badassedness that made him who he was to begin with. But, to prevent the cancer from coming back, which this type was sure to do with a deadly survival rate once it does, he needed a stem-cell transplant.
He survived that as well, and so began a long host of smaller battles with Graft vs. Host Disease. I don't feel the need to detail those struggles here, and there are too many to adequately give attention to, but as Todd's body gradually turned on him, his spirit, compassion and humor never did. He was stubborn and resolute right to the end.
Todd's a guy who stole my car once to go buy me a Christmas present, called me his brother and told me he loved me at the end of every phone call to make sure I knew how much he valued our friendship (and vice-versa) and the guy who called me nearly every day for weeks when my mother, grandfather and friend all died within weeks of one another during the holiday season of 2008. He broke his left hand on my apartment floor and required two surgeries to fix it, performed a full-on singing and dance rendition of "The Humpty Dance" by Digital Underground from the front seat of my car as we were driving to Redlands for work and he dragged me to a Mexican karaoke bar in Cabo San Lucas because he was insistent that the dozens of locals present needed to hear him perform Elvis's "Jailhouse Rock" live before we left even though none of them spoke any English. (They loved it, and loved him.)
Todd loved telling you about the things he was good at (acting, martial arts, pool, math, sales, psychology, anything else that came to mind) but what he was proudest of was becoming a husband and father later in his life. His legacy is his wife Lisa and their three sons. Every second he fought his illness was an extra second he earned with them, which he cherished even when he was exhausted, frustrated and hurting.
Todd is and will always be family to me, a term I do not use lightly. It is one of the highest honors of my life to have been held in such high esteem by one of the truest, most honest and most passionate friends and human beings anyone could ever hope to meet.
Safe travels in your next journey, Todd Kimsey. As you walk through the valley in the shadow of Death, you shall fear no evil, because you are the baddest motherfucker in the valley.