Graduating from school of life doesn't stop former Times staffer

An older friend of mine likes to say he doesn’t mind being a senior, he just doesn’t want to graduate. I always thought that was pretty funny. Not so much now that I have reached an age when people I know are starting to graduate a little more often than I like.

My friend and former Times staff writer Chris Garifo wasn’t a senior when he graduated. He earned a degree in non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at an age when a lot of folks are just learning how to navigate life without using training wheels. I am talking young. A spring chicken. A kid. He was my age.

He surely wasn’t ready to graduate in his early 50s. He kept turning down his diploma every time the principal of Cancer High School tried to tell him he had enough credits and it was time to move on. His attorneys, K. Moe Therapy and Ray D. Ashun, helped keep him out of a cap and gown for years, but he ultimately lost the fight and was forced to accept the degree he never asked for and fought so hard to reject. That, though, was not the end of his story.

Chris was a gentle giant of a man who worried more about inconveniencing others than he did himself. I don’t know how many times he turned down my offers to drive him to Burlington, Vt., for one of the million treatments he had to go through during his last year, but it was a lot. No matter how weak or tired, he’d rock his University of Arizona baseball hat, pin on his “Cancer Sucks!” button, jump in his truck, pop the CD he burned and dubbed “Cancer Tour 2008” into the player, and off he would roll. “Thanks, Jeffrey, but you got better things to do.”

That was Chris being Chris. The kind of guy who long after meds made it impossible for him to drink alcohol, would make sure he had a case of Foster’s lager in the fridge if he knew I was coming to visit. He would not just buy beer that he couldn’t drink, he’d buy good beer. And the day he found out his treatments would mean an extended stay at the American Cancer Society’s Hope Lodge in Vermont, I came home to find what was left of the case sitting on my porch. Chris being Chris.

Maybe Chris had demons lurking from lives he lived long before he met me. He hinted at that one sunny day as we walked the streets of downtown Burlington. He couldn’t walk very fast or too far for very long, so we made a lot of stops and talked. It was mostly small talk with a dying man ... stuff that was easy to forget. But I will always remember one thing he said: “Jeffrey, I only wish I had been nicer to people along the way.” I’ll remember that because I couldn’t believe it. I had no point of reference to connect Chris and mean. I guess he knew better than me. Or maybe it was just him needlessly worrying about how he treated others. Chris being Chris.

His parents sent me a note this week saying Chris was doing well after graduation – that they would soon be helping him move to his new home at a spot overlooking the Pacific Ocean. They said he had recently completed another step in his academic career by taking part in a program at a company called BioGift. The program gave scientists a chance to study him and to do research that one day could mean others won’t have to take extended stays at the Hope Lodge. His final time in a classroom was spent doing something good for others. And he made sure that good deed will continue for years to come. Chris being Chris. A fine person. A fine student of life.