Tom Gavin.

Most of you from back home who have been following my blog know that I studied and worked in Philadelphia for several years before becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer. For much of that time, I lived with Tom Gavin (an old classmate of my father’s from architecture school) and his wife, Cara. I cannot think of my time in Philadelphia without thinking of morning coffees with Tom, the extravagant dinners that he cooked up, or the questions he peppered me with about Philadelphia’s streetscapes as we explored them. His generosity of spirit, curiosity and kind-heartedness, were a powerful demonstration about how I should interact with people, of what I should strive to be like. I took to calling him my godfather when explaining my relationship with him to other volunteers and with Paraguayans.

A month after I arrived in Potrero Pucu, Tom was diagnosed with an especially pernicious form of brain cancer. And as my experiences with Tom defined my time in Philly, his battle with brain cancer came to define my time in Paraguay a little too. He died last night. I’ll miss him very much.