[Vision2020] tribute to Jim LaFortune

[keely emerinemix]

Visionaires,

Below is a little something I wrote this evening for Jim LaFortune, the Moscow Jr. High teacher and beloved community member who died early Friday.  Jim's death will be mourned by everyone who knew him, but his life and the joy with which he lived it will remain in Moscow as long as people reflect on the simple blessings of little things like dancing at Rendezvous, or eating curly fries at the fair . . . 

>From Prevailing Winds. 11/12/10

"This morning I received word that Jim LaFortune, who taught both of my 
sons at Moscow Jr. High School, succumbed to the glioblastoma 
multi-forme -- brain cancer -- that doctors discovered about, if I 
recall correctly, two years ago.  At that time, Jim, easily the most 
popular teacher in town and a man beloved by everyone who knew him, was 
given three weeks to live.  Three weeks turned into three months, then 
six, and this man's spirit and zeal for life, already evident in his 
every step, eventually carried him through a much longer life expectancy
 than doctors had initially thought possible.  Just a couple of weeks 
after his first brain surgery, I saw him at the fair -- shaved, scarred, 
shaking, and smiling with such unabashed joy that it brought me to 
tears.

His diagnosis came less than a month after I greeted him 
at Moscow's Rendezvous in the Park in 2008 -- as Jim and his beautiful 
wife, Kathy, got up to dance in the rough grass below the bandstand, I 
remarked to my husband what a wonderful smile, what an obvious 
enthusiasm for life, Jim showed.  He once called me his favorite 
Christian; he thought was a great school board trustee.  I can't imagine
 I deserved it, but Jim was, without question, my favorite teacher and a
 man who brought grace, wisdom, joy, and a searing intelligence to 
everything he touched.  He taught Spanish and Earth science, but I know 
that his students learned much, much more from Jim than present-tense 
conjugations and basic geology.  His son is a friend of my son,  and 
there are very few people in Moscow who didn't know Jim or Kathy 
LaFortune.

People like Jim make small towns more vibrant and more rich, and I wish with all my heart he weren't gone."

Keely
www.keely-prevailingwinds.com


 		 	   		  
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