No matter how many times disease knocks him down, Jerry gets back up

Jerry Remy’s journey, for so many years, was the stuff little boys dream of, coming out of Somerset, a pastoral little town in Bristol County, and scrapping his way up the ladder to the bigs.

Not only that, he spent seven of his 10 major league seasons playing second base for the Red Sox. How great was that?

He would become a Fenway favorite, maybe because he was one of our own, or maybe because he regularly got his uniform dirty, playing like that Longfellow workman, the one whose brow “was wet with honest sweat.”

Whatever it was, he sure connected with the fans of Boston who love that spit-in-your-eye approach to sports.

Moving on to the NESN booth was natural. Who would you rather watch a game with?

Life was good. And then cancer proceeded to ambush him, over and over, as it’s doing again now for the sixth time.

A year ago this month, prior to a game against the Yankees, he was honored on his 30th anniversary as a Sox broadcaster, seven weeks after undergoing lung surgery and two days before beginning chemotherapy.

Jerry never flinched when acknowledging his battles, calling that savage disease by its name, reminding us courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s the conquest of it.

“But I haven’t done it alone,” he hastened to add. “My wife, Phoebe, is not only my best friend, but also the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

Now in the 43rd year of their marriage, they’re ready to do battle again.

Old-timers in this town will remember a terrific featherweight named Tommy Collins. At the end of Tommy’s career, though clearly worn out, he wanted to earn one last purse to buy a honeymoon home for his bride May in Woburn.

So promoter Rip Valenti set up a Garden bout with lightweight champ Jimmy Carter, then in his prime.

It was a horrible mismatch; Tommy was flattened 13 times before the ref ended it in the fourth round.

“Some will remember Tommy went down 13 times,” Ring Magazine noted in a touching tribute to the South End native. “But we will remember Tommy got up 13 times.”

That’s what Jerry and Phoebe Remy are doing right now, answering the bell for another go with this merciless disease.

In doing so they’re personifying “in sickness and in health,” the promise they swapped a long, long time ago.

And, as the scrapper from Somerset climbs off the canvas yet again, they’re showing us all what it means to live life on life’s terms, fair or not.