Jonah H. Harris

Andrew & Olivia Selby

While I’ve upgraded my personal site to use WordPress, I felt strongly about carrying-forward a single item from my previous home page; a post about a friend, co-worker, artist, and loving father, Andrew Selby, who was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia on July 8, 2003 and passed away on July 6, 2004.

Andrew was a great, funny, and optimistic guy who I met at Albuqerque TVI (now Central New Mexico Community College).  After my stint at Ethicon Endo-Surgery, I had been working for TEKsystems when I received a call from Andrew Selby and Rich Black regarding a project for migrating Microsoft Frontpage sites from WindowsNT to Linux.  The phone call went really well, and I was contracted to provide a self-service tool which allowed departments to migrate their own sites to Linux.  During the project, I had fun working with Andrew and Rich, but the contract was soon over, and I went back to the commercial world.  Some time later, I received an email from Andrew stating that a UNIX administrator position was going to be posted and that if I wanted to come back to TVI, I should apply for it.

Andrew Hugging Olivia

After some initial hesitation, I decided to meet Andrew for lunch just to catch up on things.  It was at that point when I realized that I really would enjoy working at TVI and applied accordingly.  My interview went well, and I soon joined the UNIX team.  While I didn’t get the chance to work with Andrew every day, we would occasionally work on the same projects or go out to lunch.  One of those few projects I got to work with Andrew on was his Website Redesign Project.

Andrew and his team (Andrew Miesem and Jonahlyn Gilstrap) were dedicated to developing an entirely new website for the college.  In fact, it was Andrew himself that had designed the new site, put the required RFPs together, and eventually succeeded in purchasing all of the software and hardware needed to make his plan a reality.  Unfortunately, Andrew fell ill before all of the work could be completed.

Out of respect to Andrew, I decided to take on his previous position and aid Jonahlyn in completing his vision.  Along with a couple new web developers, Jonahlyn and I worked hard to complete Andrew’s work and released the new site on July 6, 2005, a year after Andrew’s death.  While Andrew’s original design is no longer in use, the infrastructure and foundation he built are still in place.  I believe Andrew would’ve been proud to see how he shaped not only the institution itself, but also those he worked with.

Lori and Olivia placing a brick in honor of Andrew at Casa Esperanza, a support organization for families facing cancer.

When I remember Andrew, I remember what an excellent artist and creative person he was.  I still clearly recall one of the last personal projects he discussed with me, ToonPang.  Andrew (Selby), Andrew Miesem, and I went to lunch at Frontier where we discussed ToonPang, his idea for an interactive, community-oriented collaborative cartoon system based on a modified version of OekakiPoteto.  Just a few days ago, I ran across a folder which contained the basic requirements, design, and flowcharts he gave me over 5 years ago.  One day, I hope to get the time to develop it.

At the time of his passing, I decided to compose something for Andrew.  Given that I hadn’t known him very long, I tried to focus on remembering some of the laughs we shared and on his creativity and optimism.  The sheet music for A Life Once Lived, can be found here.

Rest in peace Andrew, we miss you.

A little earlier this evening, I read a blog entry my mom had posted regarding her thoughts on life, choices, etc…  While I’m not yet as wise as she, and as I cannot sleep, I finally decided to post my current thoughts on life and a tiny bit of the history behind them as well.

When I was young, my parents divorced.  While I was certainly sad, I don’t recall ever having been angry about it.  After the divorce, my sister and I lived with our mom and visited our dad quite often.  In front of my sister and me, my mom and dad always got along and never said anything negative about one another.  To us, our dad just lived at another house.  In those days, we didn’t have much money, but we made do with what we had and were relatively happy.

As time progressed, my mom got remarried and me, my sister, my mom, and my step-dad moved to Connecticut.  The last time we visited my dad before leaving, while visibly upset, he told us how much he loved us, that he would always love us, and that he would try to get us to come back down and visit him.

Aside from the fact that we were very young and it would’ve been difficult to travel, my dad couldn’t easily afford to have us visit him.  Nevertheless, throughout the year he would send us letters and talk to us on the phone.  Then, one fateful day, my sister and I were dismissed from school early.

I remember my mom crying as she told us that something had happened to our dad; that he was badly hurt in an industrial accident.  I remember my mom, my sister, and I going to Albuquerque to visit the hospital he was admitted to.  When we arrived, we entered his room.

To this day, I recall precisely what he looked like lying on the bed attached to the machines.  I remember the overall feeling of sadness from everyone.  I remember that my sister and I had drawn him get well cards.  I remember that I wanted to talk to him.  I remember hoping, for more than anything in the world, that he would get better.  After a short while though, it was obvious that he would never recover from his injuries. My dad died when I was eight years old.

While memory seems to fade over time, I still have many fond memories of my dad.  I remember my first BB-gun and him teaching me how to shoot.  I remember him teaching my sister and me to ride a horse and how to lasso.  I remember a couple of times that we went to his house and drank coffee, ate Star Crunches, and he made us some awesomely-seasoned cooked-to-perfection french fries!  Every once in awhile he would even let me steer his truck down the empty dirt road to his house.  He also directed a little spoof of Young Guns which my sister and I starred in!  If I think hard enough, I can even remember what he smelled like.  My dad was great.  We had a lot of fun with him and to this day I’ll never doubt that he loved us; I miss him very much.

Earlier this evening, as I have done with all my kids over the past seven years, I cuddled with my now three-and-a-half year old Isabella as she went to sleep.  I looked into her eyes and told her what a good girl she is, how much I love her, that I will always love her, and that I’m glad to have her in my life.

You never know when your last chance will be to hold, hug, or talk to someone you love.  While leaving behind a reputation or mark on civilization would be nice, more than anything else in this world, the only thing I care about is for my kids to know how much I loved them.

While the scientific and logical side of me says that it’s unlikely that God exists, I have seen and experienced things which cannot currently be explained by science.  As such, I am always hopeful that, when it’s my time to go, I will get to see my dad again and watch down on my kids as they live their own lives.

Money creates opportunity, but a life without love is not worth living.  You only get one life and it may be cut short.  Be sure to cherish it.