Tributes are already beginning to arrive for my dear friend Brett Foster, who died last night at an obscenely early age. Wesley Hill, with whom Brett and I spent many sweet hours, has posted his remembrance, with the addition of an especially appropriate poem by Brett.
In the photo above Brett and I are in London, and about to go, with our beloved wives, to have dinner with Chris and Rachel Bond, who then lived in St. John’s Wood. We brought our ritual offerings, as you can see, our libations to be poured out, but Chris’s parents had fetched such sweet vintage from their home in the south of France, and Chris poured so discreetly and yet freely, that I believe our cheap bottles remained untouched. How we laughed that evening; what joy was had in friendship and fellowship. We all grew drunk with wine and with sheer affection, and the Fosters and Jacobses staggered back to our cab in helpless giggles.
Last year, soon after Brett received his cancer diagnosis — already Stage 4 — he came to visit Teri and me at our home in Waco. “I hope it’s not my time,” he said to me at a sober moment. “But if it is — Alan, my days have been full. They’ve been rich.” Indeed they were, dear Brett; and in God’s mercy will yet be.