Gifted Evans a gift to lives he touched
Jim Evans had a gift, and he was a gift.
Well-chosen words that conveyed clarity and understanding flowed from my former colleague, who died Thursday after battling cancer since 2009.
Writing is hard work, but Jim, like greats from other walks of life, made it look easy. He didn’t take his skill for granted. He nurtured it by reading voraciously, staying current with the world and challenging himself to seek the best words to tell a story or make a point.
And my friend was as adept at the art of the interview as anyone I’ve known.
He always knew what to ask. He always knew what to say.
“He was amazing,” Lisa Downey, a softball and basketball coach at L’Anse Creuse High School in Harrison Township, said in an email after learning of Jim’s passing.
Yes, he was.
Downey’s appreciation of Evans’ work is an example of why he was amazing.
Jim worked for more than 40 years in the newspaper industry. Most of his career was spent covering high school sports in Oakland County, but about 15 years ago, as staff cuts and other developments led to changes, Macomb County sports became Jim’s domain.
It didn’t take long for Macomb’s coaches, athletes and others to learn what readers from Royal Oak to Oxford had known for years: No one told a story better than Jim Evans.
Jim’s work, a cut above no matter the market, was a steady reminder that a story can’t be told until the story is known.
His penchant for conversation with strangers and those he knew well was legendary in the newsroom.
It didn’t matter if Jim talked with a custodian, a pizza delivery person, an athlete who had made the winning basket or a coach who had lost a close game, his at-ease style fostered a casual exchange that yielded everything from cold truths to endearing anecdotes.
Talk to Jim once, and you were his friend.
Talk to him a second time, and he’d inquire about the family, the job, Thanksgiving dinner and more.
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, people in my business have done most of their work from home or assignment sites. Face to face contact with colleagues has been rare.
I thought about the last time I saw Jim.
It was a sunny latesummer day. Jim and his wife, Kim, drove to my house to deliver a selfie stick Jim had purchased for me to conduct “socially distanced” interviews with my phone.
When they arrived, my brother, Mark, and I were cleaning the garage.
Mark had Down syndrome. Always my best buddy, he’d lived with me since 2008.
Jim frequently asked about Mark, about his love of wrestling and NASCAR and the joy he got from coloring, working puzzles and going to McDonald’s.
They fist-bumped that day.
Mark fell at home on a Sunday night in January and broke his left hip. Two days later, he had surgery and seemed destined
for a quick release for rehab, but on Wednesday he developed a cough and on Thursday morning he was in ICU with pneumonia.
By the ensuing Monday, Mark was in hospice, my heart was in pieces and our family gathered to await the inevitable.
While we were in that hospital room, my phone rang. It was Jim.
First, he apologized. That’s right, the guy who was losing a years-long battle with cancer, who had been compelled to retire earlier that month because the illness was getting to be too much, said he was sorry for not calling sooner.
Then Jim did what Jim always did. He found the right words to express his sorrow over our sorrow, asked how he could help and blessed our situation with grace so obvious by my responses that my sister took the phone and thanked Jim for his kindness and compassion in a dark hour.
Jim was dying, but the man who had a gift and was a gift put himself aside to lighten someone else’s load.
He always knew what to ask. He always knew what to say.
I don’t know how he did it that day. I don’t know how he did it for the 11 years that cancer ravaged his body.
I do know where my faith stands, and I know the same of Jim’s, so I have a last request of him: Go with God, Jim. Give Mark a hug, and tell him that one day the three of us will have a reunion for the ages.
A funeral for Jim Evans will be Feb. 27 at St. John’s Lutheran Church, 1011 W. University, Rochester. Doors open at 10 a.m. with the service beginning at 11. It is open to the public. No gathering or dining is planned after the service due to COVID-19 protocols. The family plans to hold this summer a gathering to celebrate Jim’s life.
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DEAR ABBY » On Sept. 14, 2017, you printed my letter about my exhusband “borrowing” money from my 13-yearold son’s piggy bank. Soon after, you reached out to tell me a gentleman (the founder of an organization that helps people who have been wronged) wanted to send my son twice the amount of money that had been taken from him. My son was humbled, to say the least. Not only did that gesture restore my son’s faith in people, but he gained from it a friend who made a lasting impression.
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We were devastated to learn recently of Bill’s unexpected passing from a stroke. Our hearts are broken, but my son’s is forever changed and filled with gratitude for having known Bill, even if only for a short time.
Abby, thank you for printing my letter three years ago. Without it, none of this would have been possible. We would also like to extend our sincere condolences to Bill’s wife and family. His kind soul touched my son so deeply that his spirit will continue to live on.
— Hoping to Pay It Forward
DEAR HOPING » What a beautiful tribute to a man whose life was welllived. I hope his family sees your letter. I have often said that
Dear Abby readers are the most generous in the world. Bill was an example of that, and I am sure he will be greatly missed. I would like to extend my condolences to his grieving family along with your own.
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