Canzano: Randomness stalks us every day
A classic "Dick and Jean" story.
I received a note from a reader recently that melted me on the spot. Jean Clark wrote to say that her husband, Dick, got very sick.
Cancer in the upper intestines, doctors told him.
“Just so you know, in his final days,” Jean wrote, “I was reading to him message subjects in his email inbox. He told me to delete most of them except yours. He’d get back to reading them later. Sadly, he passed so quickly that he never had the chance.
“So I’ve still got his phone. And you're still stacking in his inbox. I’ve read them all, and now I understand why he was such a fan.”
Dick was 78.
Jean wrote to tell me that I’d lost a loyal reader. She’s crushed over his death and misses her husband. I’m naturally curious, and after I read her note, I was reminded of something one of my good friends, Jeff Heller, told me once.
Jeff’s son, David, died as a teenager. It was a tragic event. David had come home from a high school basketball scrimmage and wasn’t feeling well. He went to bed, suffered cardiac arrest, and died in his sleep. Turns out he had an enlarged heart. It was an undetected condition.
I told Jeff once that I didn’t know whether I should bring David up in conversation. It was a painful topic. I thought about his son often, but didn’t know if talking about the tragedy of that loss over and over helped or hurt.
I wasn’t sure what to say at times.
“I love talking about my son,” he told me. “Gosh, please keep bringing him up. I never get tired of talking about David.”
So I replied to Jean’s email and asked about Dick.
Jean told me she met her husband 40 years ago. They’ve been married for 33 years. No children, but “oodles of nieces and nephews.” Dick worked for Fred Meyer as a vice president in charge of real estate. In his free time, he played golf, rooted for the Oregon Ducks, and loved to take Jean to dinner at their favorite Italian restaurant.
“Bugattis,” she said.
Bugattis happened to be one of my favorites, too. The restaurant closed earlier this year. The owner was mired in a financial crisis with one of his other businesses and had to shutter the place.
It turns out that, for years, Dick and Jean lived less than two miles from where I am writing this column. We never met. Jean and Dick relocated to Oro Valley, Arizona, after he retired, but she told me they were aware that we were basically neighbors for a good spell.
Life is full of plot twists. We use words such as “destiny” and “fate” and talk about being in the right place at the right time. I’ve often been struck by what are seemingly random coincidences. I’ve wondered if we create the entirety of our path or just participate in it. Knowing that I probably walked past Jean or Dick at the local Starbucks or in the grocery store gives me some strange comfort
I’m writing this column alone in a room. It’s cold and sunny outside. The sunlight is peeking through the curtains. I can hear the soft hum of the heating system. The two youngest kids in the home have left for school, taking their morning chatter and giggles with them. I heard their voices trail off. The door slammed behind them. Then, they were gone, leaving me alone with this column.
I live an absurd professional existence. I’ve touched on that topic many times. It never ceases to bewilder me. But think about this. The words on my laptop screen were carefully selected and put in a specific order today. I’m like one of those automatic card shufflers at the casino, shuffling six decks at the blackjack table. I didn’t invent the words. I just arranged them in a way here that has never been done before.
Writing is a deeply personal and vulnerable experience. The subject matter is known only to me until I hit “publish” and blast my work to tens of thousands of people on any given day. In an instant, I transition from the quiet comfort of total privacy of thought to abruptly finding my views pushed out there, exposed to the world.
It’s like standing on the edge of a pool diving board or putting my toes on a rock at a swimming hole. I’m in a safe and silent spot. I look down at the water. I leap. Then, I’m suddenly in the ‘drink’ and aware that I’d better start swimming.
I love it when readers say ‘hello’ to me in public. I was on a plane recently, and a gentleman beside me looked over, noticed me working, and asked me where he could read my writing. I started to tell him that I’d left the safety of the traditional newspaper world and launched this independent pirate ship at JohnCanzano.com when the guy seated directly behind me interjected.
“I’m a subscriber,” he announced.
I turned and shook his hand.
Then, a guy one row behind him spoke up and said, “I’m a daily reader, too.”
Best plane trip ever. Because I suddenly had faces to go with the email addresses that I see on the subscriber list. The readers weren’t just names. They were actual people, right next to me. I thanked them both. Not just because they help support my kids, but because they’re real people and I could finally see them.
When Jean wrote to tell me that I was a small part of her late husband’s day, I felt an incredible sense of gratitude and connection.
Dick got that terrible pathology report, confirming that it was cancer, on the first Friday of 2026. He died just two days later, on Sunday. If we knew that we had so few sunsets left that we could count them on one hand, how would we live?
Book that trip.
Hug your kids.
Seize the moment.
That’s the lesson that Dick and Jean are reminding us about. We never got the chance to have pasta together at that Italian place, but the conversation they’ve sparked here is rich. I love that we got to share it, even if it feels like a stray occurrence.
It’s like novelist and poet Paul Auster wrote: “Randomness stalks us every day of our lives.”
I got an email on Thursday from an 88-year-old woman named Bev who reads my column. She gifted her two sons “gift” subscriptions last year. She wanted help renewing those subscriptions. They enjoy the publication as a family. That warms me.
We ended up on the phone because Bev wanted to know if she could gift her two sons subscriptions for future years, you know, in case she wasn’t around to do it herself. When I informed her that she could schedule the gift subscriptions for future years online, she was delighted.
The new gifts stack on top of the current subscription, extending the expiration date. Her kids are good for a couple of years, courtesy of mom. She’s a great mom. I’ll bet neither of them is surprised.
I spend a lot of time chasing stories. The rebuild of the Pac-12. Oregon’s College Football Playoff run. I love writing human interest pieces.
I’m planning trips to campus at Texas State, Utah State, Colorado State, and Fresno State in the coming weeks. I’m drilling into the Mountain West media rights deals to see what’s there.
I’m grateful that you’re here with me.
“Thank you for entertaining Dick over all these years,” Jean wrote to me. “He was a kind, special, and wonderful man.”
Jean said her husband went fast. He didn’t suffer. She wrote, “It was a shock. First symptoms were on Thanksgiving Day. Good and awful all at the same time. I’m heartbroken.”
Jean never read my column before her husband’s death. They started stacking up in Dick’s email inbox. She reports that she’s reading now. I’ll bet this is her favorite one yet.
Hard to recall a better column, one so graceful, poignant and filled with insight. Please keep diving into the pool.
What they said. Just when we think we know your depth as a person, you change our perception once again. Bless you John, Charlie