James Duff

Eulogy for James Bryan Duff – 12/11/10:

Thank you for coming today.  As I proudly introduced myself more than a hundred times at the Memorial Concert in New Hampshire last month, my name is Mike Duff – I am Jim Duff’s older brother.

The river of life carries us where it will.  Jim’s life and recent passing remind us that our job is to make the most of each day of a journey we did not plan and do not control.  Thoughts of Jim also remind us that the sign of a truly remarkable person is bringing out the best in everyone around them.

For our first twenty some years, we were inseparable with Jim essentially playing Mr. Spock to my Captain Kirk: we were altar boys, co-founders of the Grant Street Ghetto Athletic Association, seminarians, teammates in track & field, co-workers and co-tenants of some of the worst houses Bloomington has to offer.

Early on, we did our best to handle the duties that come with being the oldest of 11.  By early adulthood, Jim realized that his older brother really was crazy enough to think he could make it up as he went along so he did what any sane person would do – he said, ‘Good luck, dude’, went back to school, got his degrees, started a career that reached its pinnacle a few weeks before his diagnosis, married Kirsten and with her raised the three beautiful young women you see here today; Hannah, Molly and Jenny. 

It wasn’t enough for Kirk & Spock to form a great team.  To become fully formed adults, we each needed to rub off on the other.  In our case, this reciprocating influence resulted in Jim living the principal that reason without the courage of one’s conviction too often results in rationalizing inaction in the face of hostility, duplicity or bureaucratic inertia while I learned, slowly, over a lifetime, that emotional people are most effective when they don’t make emotional decisions.

Jim and I were very close but quite competitive.  I usually did better in language arts and Jim surpassed me in math.  So, it’s ironic that he ended up fueling his technical career by writing and speaking as clearly as anyone ever has while most of my jobs have involved measuring improvement in one way or another.

While Jim ended up being a very good athlete in high school (he was a hurdler and ran third on a Bloomington High relay team that qualified for the state finals), he came to his physical coordination much later than I did.  We were 11 and 10 when we had our first chance to try out for Little League.  My tryout went very well while Jim’s was more an exercise in circling under fly balls that eventually landed behind him.  We found out later that night however that, because our jersey numbers had been switched on the programs, Jim was picked #1 and I was picked by no one.  I honestly don’t know which of us felt worse as I spent the summer watching him walk out of the house in his Kiwanis uniform to sit on the bench, but it was an early lesson that the river of life carries us where it will – while guaranteeing nothing when it comes to delivering the outcomes that we may expect.

Jim wasn’t always the handsome devil we all came to know.  One day when we were 7 and 6, we decided to jump off the back roof of the family garage into some bushes.  By now, you can probably guess whose bright idea that was.  Well we both managed to land without breaking any bones, but Jim started screaming anyway.  Turns out, in mid-flight, a bumble bee flew up his nose and stung him repeatedly.  Over the next hour, his upper lip swelled to three times its usual size.

Now you may be wondering, just how sensitive was Jim’s older brother to his gruesome, but temporary, Twilight Zone quality physical deformity?  Let’s put it this way; I had surgery a few years back to fix a hernia that I’m pretty sure started when I laughed hysterically at Jim for 2 solid weeks while simultaneously running all over the neighborhood pointing him out to our friends.

Duffs are renowned for their cockeyed optimism (as evidenced by our purchase of IU Football season tickets for the past 34 years), and Jim was no exception.  I only recently stumbled upon the headwaters of that optimism. The patriarch of our clan, Robert Duff, was born in 1921.  Last Saturday, as I was driving Dad to lunch at Cracker Barrel, he said he’d just purchased a set of 85,000 mile Michelins – this for a car that he drives 2 MILES A DAY.  Buying green bananas is optimism.  I have no idea what you call an 89 year old man buying tires whose warranty will expire in 116 years, 4 months and 24 days.

The river of life carries us where it will - how long our journey will be is unknowable.  Jim Duff was a healthy, robust, positive-thinking 60 year-old man starting the most productive and profitable time of his professional life when he was run down by a freight train called Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

In our last phone call, Jim said he’d had big plans for me once we were retired.  I knew what he meant and I said my plans were similarly sized.  But, now that we knew the natural boundaries of his life, he no longer had to wonder why he was put here, what he was meant to accomplish, the real purpose for his being on the river to begin with.

It gave us both comfort to talk about not just his technical accomplishments but, more importantly, Kirsten, Hannah, Molly, Jenny and the fact that Jim always inspired people to do and be their best.

The river of life carries us where it will and there are times when you can feel the current physically sweep you along.  Jim spoke to me with raspy enthusiasm on a Tuesday about being accepted into a clinical trial.  The next day, his liver started to fail, Kirsten took Jim to the hospital in Nashua where he quickly lapsed into a coma.  On Saturday night, she texted me, “It would be good if you could come.”  My flight landed in Manchester at 11PM Sunday and Hannah got me to Jim’s room just before midnight.

We spent our last 20 minutes together and Jim passed away peacefully two hours later.

The river of life carries us where it will and, as Saturday transitioned to Sunday, October 11th, 2010, it swept me along to Jim’s bedside as he gracefully cleared his final hurdle in this world.

After what we’ve experienced in the past few months, it’s tempting to say that the river of life isn’t fair, but, in reality, it’s not unfair.  It isn’t just, but it’s not unjust.  It isn’t right.  It isn’t wrong.  It simply is.

By accepting with our whole heart that which occasionally brings us great pain, we keep ourselves open to the abundance of love, beauty, fun and fellowship that fill our lives every day.

Everyone in the lineage of the Duffs, Schooleys, Reis’, Hawleys, Sheas, Tuckers – you get the picture – we all have a lot to live up to.  Because it will take courage, optimism, loyalty, hard work, unyielding faith, good humor and simply treating people better than they probably deserve – it will take all of that to earn the right to truly say that we are related to this great guy and wonderful man, James Bryan Duff.

Jim was never less than the third most important person in my life.  He still is.

Michael R. Duff

My dad often travelled for his job, and whenever he left bright and early in the morning, he was so careful not to wake us up. I would wake up in the middle of the night, panicked that I wouldn't get to say goodbye to him. So I'd get up, find some paper and a pen, and write him a note begging him to wake me up before he left. And at about 4am he would come into my room to say goodbye, just like I asked. :)

I love you daddy

My name is Jeff Drake. I have had the great pleasure and honor of knowing and working closely with Jim for the past 20 years.

It is a sign of the times perhaps, that Jim and I would forge the strongest of friendships without ever having socialized much at all outside of the context of our work. During the past month, as I struggled with my grief,  I have pondered on this at some length, and was reminded of another time in my life when I forged similar bonds with men I was stationed with during my two tours of duty in Vietnam, men like Jim; men I called my brothers.

Jim and I fortunately, didn’t have to experience the horrors of war to build our friendship. Yet, like my experience with my brothers-in-arms, Jim and I bonded over the things we shared or of which we felt strongly. Some of these things were work-related, so you may or may not be aware of them. Things like:

·         The immense satisfaction Jim felt from a job done well.  

·         A total dedication to constantly improving the quality of his work.

·         A passion for learning, increasing his subject knowledge and doing everything he could to make the complex seem plain for both our customers and our HP teammates. It’s hard to describe the synergy that Jim and I had with our areas of expertise.  Either one of us could throw out a topic for analysis and discussion and before we knew it, we’d been at it for hours. With my background in Philosophy and Jim’s analytical acuity, we could talk any subject to death quite easily and often did. Most often we would arrive at a position that was clear and could be articulated.

·         A willingness to go “the extra mile” to meet his project commitments, often resulting in long hours and much time away from home. My wife reminded me more than once over the years, that there were long periods of time when I probably spent more time with Jim than I did with her. I suspect she’s right and I suspect Kirsten would feel the same.

It was all of these things that made Jim a very valuable and respected resource.

Other things we shared were life-related and equally important to both of us. Things like:

·         Our love of good old fashioned rock music. Jim was always cursing me in jest, for my having caused him to become “addicted” to Porcupine Tree. Neither of us could ever listen to too much Porcupine Tree.

·         And talking politics. Although on different sides of most political arguments, we loved to engage in meaningful debates on a variety of political topics. We would each get our licks in and while few arguments were ever settled, we both enjoyed the experience immensely and never had an argument we couldn’t easily recover from. When we were both at HP, our debates were often carried out in email and would draw a wide audience of our peers, some of whom asked to be copied just to enjoy the show. I would frequently tell Jim, with a smile on my face, that I was always surprised by how someone so brilliant could be so wrong.

·         And I can’t forget “humor.” To be perfectly honest, one of the biggest reasons Jim and I loved to work together was that we just enjoyed each other’s company and shared the same humor and wit. It didn’t matter if we were working our butts off, or if we were struggling with serious project issues, or had been handed a difficult job which few could do, we always managed to have a good time. I have been fortunate over the past couple years to have spent a lot of time working at home in my office, with Jim on the phone. My wife would often say to me when I’d emerge from my office, “You were talking to Jim, weren’t you?” I’d ask her how she knew that, and she’d respond, “Because I could hear you laughing.”

It was these things that made Jim a terrific friend and work companion.

Recounting any memory I have of Jim would not be complete without mentioning the great respect I had for him not only as a very good friend, but more importantly, as a man. Jim’s sense of honor, his honesty, and his sense of responsibility, was really quite remarkable. The only quality of Jim’s that outshined all of these, and everything I have already told you about, is his love for, and his dedication to his wife, Kirsten, and his children: Molly, Jenny and Hannah.

In fact, there is only one subject that could cause Jim to get animated and even well-up with tears, and that’s whenever he talked about his family, especially his kids. His pride and love for his wife and kids was immeasurable and it was apparent whenever he spoke of you.

Although the author of this statement is unknown for sure, I immediately thought of Jim’s family when I heard it and I thought I’d share it with you today:

Remember, to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all, mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you. Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak, and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

And I want you girls to know that the love and pleasure Jim so obviously experienced whenever he spoke of you, took his breath away, each and every time.

Jim, you will be missed.

By the way, we met in an accounting class at IU. He’d walk me to the next class or to my jobs. One day, as he was walking out the German library door looking towards the elevator, he said, “Hm, I like you!”  And I said to myself, because, by then, he was in the elevator, “Okaaaay? I like you too!”

After we started dating, he brought me a loaf of bread every week, because he thought I didn't eat enough. (I ate plenty!)  He liked bread, and me.