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Apr 21, 2011
I had no idea how short forever was.
My longtime friend Harry “James” Marr died suddenly on March 31. We met many years ago in New Mexico and have lived in Milwaukee for the last 20 years. James had such a wide-ranging influence on so many people, but on a personal level he changed my life profoundly without even knowing it. I was lucky enough to be able to tell him how he changed mine before he died.
There are so many wonderful stories about James – I have a million, just ask. I hope people tell those stories over and over as the years go on, but I want to share how I met James and how it changed everything about my life.
Many people who know both of us wonder why we were so close, since we seemed so different. We chose different careers, different lovers, different hobbies and different daily lives. What people didn’t see is that at our core, we were the same. That is the tie that binds.
The night I met James, I was barely 17. He was much older and wiser at 22. We were both at the same party. He was tall, loud and having a good time. I was drawn to him and moved closer.
He was making fun of the right side of his chest, which was a little sunken from a birth defect. He was walking around covering his chest with a flyer showing a shirtless man with a perfect chest and asking people to feel his perfect chest. This was the ’80s, and my friends and I had hair dyed all the colors of the rainbow and, of course, teased out as much as possible. He was yelling, “Somebody get me a comb! I need to fix these kids’ hair!”
I was instantly intrigued with him. We talked all night until the sun came up.
I had been raised by a conservative family and had learned what appropriate behavior was and what should be said out loud. I also knew what was expected of me and how my life was supposed to go. I had never met someone like James who spoke out loud what I was thinking in my head. I believed the way I thought was inappropriate and should be kept inside, and here was someone who let what was in his head come out of his mouth. It was funny and usually correct and it didn’t spawn the negative reactions from others I had been told it would.
Quite the opposite, it brought people together socially in a way I hadn’t seen before. It brought everyone to the same level. By highlighting his differences, he made people realize that their differences made them interesting and that nobody is better than anybody else.
From that day on, I learned that the thoughts in my head could come out. I could say how I felt. This extended to being who I was with no apologies. It was a freedom I had never known.
I am so grateful to James for leading by example and helping me discover this early in my life. That lesson has profoundly affected the person I am today. Because of James Marr, I have led a life of freedom!
Thank you, James and I’ll see you on the other side.
Your BFF, Damien Rose
