My friend Logan: First person I knew with brain cancer
PHOTO: My friend Logan. (RIP)
I was at the gym working on my "clean and jerk" (which looks like this graphic), when the song "Complex" started playing through the sound system.
The band was Little Tin Frog. The drummer was Logan Whitehurst, a long time friend, fellow drummer, and the most well-respected musician/awesome guy/creative talent among my peers between 1997 and the time of his death in 2006.
A lump rose in my throat when I recognized the song. I didn't want to cry in the gym so I did a few more clean and jerks.
There is a drum solo in the song. As cheesy as it sounds, the solo (at the 4 minute 5 second mark) is actually really cool, and is a complete extension of Logan's personality: quirky, creative and lacking in ego. For some reason there is a cowbell in it. And it all makes complete sense because it came from the mind of Logan Whitehurst.
Allyson, my trainer, was giving me pointers on clean and jerk form, but her voice was far away and took on the "wah-wah" quality of adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon.
In my house I have a black and white photograph of Logan on the beach. He is standing far away, alone in his bare feet, looking out to sea. When I look at it I imagine that's where he is now: he is looking across the sea to the living, waiting for us to join him.
Logan was diagnosed with a medulloblastoma in 2004 and died in December 2006. A medulloblastoma diagnosis is very rare for an adult.
At brain tumor walks/fun runs people fill out bibs with the names of people for whom they are walking.
I am always walking "in memory of" Logan Whitehurst. And sometimes I am working out in memory of Logan Whitehurst, too.
There’s a complete archive of all of Logan's songs (except for his final album, which you can still buy) online.
