I have a lot of people I like a great deal
who do not like one another one little bit.
I also have a lot of people I know who have friends that I think are just flaming assholes.
One of the people who has been a good friend to me, and who is in some measure both admired and despised by different readers here, is Kim Du Toit.
I’ve known Kim a very long time. He has slept under my roof and I under his, we have shot together. We are, I like to think, friends.
He has just lost his wife of twenty years, after a long battle with cancer, and because of the nature of their individual professions she had not much in the way of insurance or resources. So there are some substantial bills to pay.
If you are one of the people I know who don’t care for the DuToits, then by all means, move along. But if you remember and enjoy their writing, and have a few bucks to spare, I’d like it a lot if you’d toss a few his way. He has a large hole to dig himself out of before he can move on.
I’m on the friends and fan side, too.
Certainly, Kim has his flaws, and Connie had hers. And many have dissected, critiqued and argued about those topics around the ‘net now, for years.
Thing is, I’ve got my flaws, too. So do we all. I figure, if I can tolerate my own shortcomings (and they are legion), then I damn well ought to allow for such from my friends, too.
Lord knows they’ve GOT to be friends if they put up with my shortcomings and flaws.
It takes an awful lot of offense, be it quantity or quality, for me to write-off a friendship. And damn sure won’t do so just because it seems to be what all the cool kids are doing.
R.I.P., Connie du Toit.
And prayers for Kim, for peace and strength, through it all.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Done.
Done; wish I could afford more. I’ve missed his writing.
gave yesterday. Hope he fires the old blog up again as it was a voice in the wilderness when it was active.
I remember reading Kim’s blog way back in the early days. I was quite new and naive then, and don’t know any of the issues people had with him, and to be honest, I don’t want to know. What I do know is that for any man to lose his wife has to be a heartbreaker. I wish him all the best, and hope that he does indeed start to blog once again, for those who learned from him. It might help him to get over some of his pain from his loss.
We are all flawed… Done.