For Hugh

We lost one of our dearest friends this week, my extended family in Los Angeles. He selected the date and time, and, in consultation with those nearest to him, and most loved, he cashed out . The rest of us were not so well-prepared.

Some people are so vivid they seem to carry their own light around with them, and Hugh was one of those guys to me. He and I had a lunch date once, when I was working for a mutual fund whose offices were a matter of yards, a few stories, and a palisade away from the beach and the ocean. Hugh showed up sopping wet; he'd wanted a swim and hadn't bothered to bring a towel, and he was as elegant and as insouciant as ever. His real concern was to sell me a tapedeck he had on hand - needed the dough for an invention he was working on.

Surely, in a life filled with such improvisation, risk, private anxiety, tumultuous fortune, beauty and love - it took great pain and courage to decide where and when it would stop. As our friend Ron said, "He's braver than I am."

Memorial this Sunday, and the Sargent, above, is a tribute - Hugh was darker, but just as dashing, and JSS would have done him proud.