Well, was he a friend? I say this not because of any doubt to his being a good person, but rather, I did not know him. I knew his name, and I knew of him, but to the best of my recollection, we never met. We might have, hash events tend to be rather large and chaotic, you tend to only remember the people you knew before, or someone you spoke to for a while during it. But for the purposes of this, I'll presume we had never met.
Hashing tends to follow the old saw that "any friend of ____ is a friend of mine!" I've done a lot of traveling during my tenure as a hasher, often showing up to a hash knowing one or two people in the town, who may or may not be there that day. Yet I've never felt out of place or excluded at a hash. There are always offers of crash space if you need it, which can be a rare event these days. One notable instance of this was a weekend trip last August. I had the weekend off, and had just purchased Benny (& the Jetta), so I decided to travel to Charlotte. DwD had been begging to meet me, so this seemed like as good a time as any. I did not know her, or her husband, SP, even though I was spending the night at their place. That night, some friends of theirs, BnB and LBFF came to town, on their way to Florida. I accompanied BnB and LBFF to Savannah the next day, to hang out with RVV, who I kinda knew from previous hash events, but not really. At both places, almost complete strangers were welcomed into the home without reservation, due to mutual interests and friends.
That's why I can say that 2th was a friend, because RVV and SMS and DwD knew him. All I knew were the recent e-mails, detailing his losing battle against cancer, the failed efforts of chemo, the recent decision for hospice, and then the message that he had passed at 3:30 pm.
It's especially tough to see a hasher die of cancer, because of how my name ties hashing and cancer together. Had I not been growing my hair out for Locks of Love, I would not have been named SSJ, so my name will forever remind me of my grandmother. This is one of the reasons I will resist any efforts to change my name, because of that connection, and how it reminds me of her and how much more needs to be done to fight this scurge.
(edit: Oh, and his philosophy was "no blood, no trail" so obviously he was a brother of mine)
