Remembering Lester Edward "Josh" Saville.

We've come a long way in the battle against childhood leukemia. Josh died at 15, 30 years ago today, a week short of his 16th birthday, gone twice as long now as he was on Earth. While he was here though, Josh was LIFE, personified. My childhood memories of junior high in Thornton, Illinois include competing with him in the classroom, ball fields, the science labs, playing running bases at recess, carpooling to Saturday computer programming class at Moraine Valley, etc.

Losing a friend is never easy. It was especially odd, as we all knew his death was imminent. His cancer came back for the third time, and he chose not to try the bone marrow transplant, having suffered through spinal taps and the nauseating chemo drugs. He lived until he died, and his body slowly shut down, culminating on June 4. I understand why people so often commemorate "death dates" rather than birthdays. Every year, I remember. "Why is everyone here?"

His father told me later, when we biked around and around and around town doing laps for an American Cancer Society fundraiser, that Josh had made peace with his God. His father's only child, Mr. Saville passed a few years later of a heart attack, a broken heart from losing his boy, if you ask me.

I've googled his mother's name; she moved away, like so many Thornton people, in the past decades. She had worked in the village's clerk office; Josh's dad worked at the Ford plant. If I wrote her a note today, mostly I would just share the wonderful memories of growing up outside in a small town with roots. A running crick, woods, animals and history. (Thornton is the oldest village in Thornton Township, Cook County, Illinois.)

Life, personified.