My Friend Doug

Me, Cedric, Doug - around 1982

Two weeks ago, we talked. Really talked - about work, about old times, about nothing important that felt like everything. His voice was weaker than before, but it was still him. Still Doug, the guy I'd known for forty-five years, whose expertise in yeast and fungi identification had earned him recognition nationally as a mycologist.

Each visit since showed me less of my friend. First, the conversations grew shorter, his words more labored. Then came the days he mostly slept, stirring only when I gave his hand a shake. Last week, even that response faded.

His breathing changed completely. What was once steady became urgent, desperate. Each breath sounded like a struggle I couldn't help him win. He thrashed against sheets, against pain, against something I couldn't see or understand.

Was he dreaming? Was some part of him still in there, wrestling with memories from four and a half decades of friendship? Maybe he felt the strength that once earned him a multiple degree black belts in judo, or remembered those early Pan-Mass Challenge rides we tackled together every summer - pushing each other through the hills, sharing water and encouragement, pedaling together for cancer research, raising money to beat the very disease that finally took him. Or maybe he was laughing at one of countless crazy memories - so many things that still
make me smile.

I sat beside this man who changed my life in 1980. I'd just finished a one-year internship in clinical laboratory science, trying to figure out my next steps, when I interviewed for a position in the clinical microbiology lab. Competition was fierce, he was on the interview team and hired me. He saw something in me I hadn't yet seen in myself. Three of us became inseparable - Doug, Cedric, and me. But by 1982, my mind started to drift. Hospital work wasn't for me; I wasn't a good fit. When I decided to leave and a new direction, and Cedric headed off to Hawaii, Doug stayed behind. As he put it then, "Someone has to stick around and save lives."

It was difficult when I left the lab. In some ways, I was giving up, admitting I did not like the work. Back in 2012 I wrote about my decision to leave here.  Some were upset with my decision. But Doug - Doug encouraged me always. He understood that sometimes the best thing you can do is recognize when a path isn't right for you, even when others see it as failure.

And he did stay, saving lives for decades through his work, his dedication to understanding the microscopic world that could heal or harm. Doug was amazing at fungi identification - a skill that required incredible technique. Growing the fungi, using sticky tape to collect the flowering head, staining it, then identifying it under the microscope. I sucked at that. Doug was incredible at it. Over the years, he rose to become laboratory director, leading with the same precision and expertise he brought to every slide he examined. Through all these years, no matter where life took us, we remained in touch. If I needed anything - anything at all - he was always there. That steady presence, that unwavering friendship, became a bedrock I could always count on.

Five years ago, he had his bladder removed - the first major battle against cancer. Every three months after that, the trip to Dana-Farber in Boston for stent exchanges. He hung in there with that same determination he brought to everything - the judo mat, the Pan-Mass Challenge, his meticulous lab work, his life. He fought the good fight until the very end. 

The last word I heard him say was "pizza" a few days ago, when a dietician came in and asked what he wanted for dinner. She asked if he wanted fish - he hated fish. Even then, even barely able to speak, he managed to tell her he wanted pizza. That was so Doug, holding onto his preferences, his personality, his fight, right until the end.

Yesterday morning, that constant slipped away. His wife, his son, his dog, family - all left behind, trying to navigate a world that suddenly feels a lot smaller without him. The cruelest part is losing a rock-solid constant, a person who dedicated his life to saving others, who gave people a start and then a push, and who spent forty-five years being a true friend.

Rest up buddy.