My friend, Jamin Shevik, passed away on Friday. He was 31 years old.
I use the term “friend” perhaps a bit too loosely here; I haven’t actually spoken to him in over three years, and even then, we only spoke for about ten minutes.
Jamin and I first met in April 1990. We were both members of the newly created Apple Valley Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. At the time, I was 14 years old and he was 11. That’s a difference of only a little more than three years, but, when you’re 14 and 11, that’s a rather large gulf as far as friendships are concerned. For the first couple years after I met him, I knew him only as one of several young kids who would come up and talk to me and the ‘older’ boys before and after the meetings.
In 1992, the elders in the congregation decided to pair up just about every young boy with a slightly older boy in the hopes that the older boys’ good examples would rub off onto the younger boys. My friend Rhett began studying with Jamin (I, incidentally, was paired up with a boy who would one day become my brother-in-law). Rhett often invited me to join him in going over to Jamin’s house to study the bible with him. I often did, and this pattern lasted for years. I looked forward to going to Jamin’s house, actually. For one thing, it was far more fun than knocking on doors. But also because (and more relevant here) Jamin was fun to talk with. He and Rhett often deviated from the bible-themed topic and Jamin was eager to talk about everything from the latest movies to astronomy.
Rhett always invited Jamin to accompany us on our teenage escapades, too. In the morning, Jamin would join us in knocking on doors (where he and I would playfully discuss our hope that no one answer the door), then in the afternoon we’d head into the city to eat lunch at some groovy coffee shop and shop for CDs. He and I often attended concerts put on by our talented friends, and we – as the only non-musicians among our pals, sat on the side and worked the controls. He was always a willing (as opposed to all the reluctant people) participant in the short films I made (including, most recently, this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVwmeB-aiM8). Jamin, in fact, was with us so much, that when I got together with my friends and Jamin wasn’t there, I’d ask Rhett where Jamin was.
Later, Jamin began attending the same high school I had attended. At the start of each trimester, he’d come over and talk to me after the meetings and we’d exchange notes on his newest set of teachers – “Oh, you have Mr. Smith for woods class? He’s crazy,” I’d say. “I have Mr. Brown for driver’s ed,” Jamin would say, “I don’t think he has a sense of humor.” “No, he doesn’t,” I’d assure Jamin.
As young adults, this pattern continued. I could always count on him to be a friendly face at the meetings; he was one person that was always available and willing to talk. When I showed up at the meetings without my wife (and I frequently did), I’d often ask Jamin if I could sit next to him. At one meeting, we tried to ‘out-comment’ each other by seeing who could raise their hand more often. Another time, we stopped paying attention long enough to discuss some recent developments in cosmology we had both been reading about and, at the next meeting, Jamin helpfully showed up with a Discover magazine for me to borrow. It was the clearest explanation I’d ever read on string theory, and I returned the magazine to Jamin the following week, informing him I had torn out and mailed in the insert so that I could subscribe to Discover, too.
In more recent years, we drifted apart. Once I moved out of Apple Valley, we no longer had the constant compulsory rendezvous at the meetings. Jamin was invited to my son’s baby shower but he did not attend. I asked his mother where he was, and she explained he had just gotten married. This was news to me, in the truest sense, as I was unaware he had even been dating anyone. I asked her to extend my congratulations to her son.
Over a year went by before I heard from Jamin again. He called me in the summer of 2006 to request that I videotape his wife’s baptism, which was to take place at the upcoming District Convention. Though I wasn’t even sure if I would be attending, I agreed to it. That day, Jennifer and I met his wife for the first time, and Jamin seemed positively happy to be married and to introduce us to his wife. I taped the baptism, then stayed up late in the hotel room that night uploading the footage and burning it onto a DVD. The next day (July 30, 2006, the last day of the convention), I searched through the crowd to give Jamin and his wife the disk. I found them, we talked, and, as it turns out, that was the last time I ever spoke to him.
In a world of busyness and frustrations, where I am repeatedly let down that friends do not respond to emails or phone calls, or are too busy to get together, or forget to follow through on plans we made, I will always remember Jamin as someone who was willing to spend time with his friends and who put forth all diligence to follow through on plans he did make.
While spending time with Jamin’s brother Luke back in March of this year, I asked Luke how his older brother was doing, and he said, “Jamin is Jamin, you know,” and we laughed, but he added that Jamin seemed to be doing fine. I hope that in death Jamin finds the peace that eluded him in life.
