Watching Jack Layton literally straining against the bonds of his cancer to get his words out yesterday was hard to watch. I thought back to the 2008 campaign when, nearing the midway point, some poll or other showed Jack’s team approaching a statistical dead heat with the dismal Stephan Dion and I watched as the faithful screamed themselves hoarse at some Baltic hall on Broadview, like Jack was the Beatles or something.

Later in the campaign at a wind-up event at the downtown Sheraton, Jack gave the usual stem winder and then tongue lashed a sneering press for their snide self congratulation at having reminded the public of the red menace. After the presser I cornered then communications director Brad Lavigne and was asking the usual nonsense when around the corner whirled his leader. Jack snapped off a jaunty salute and with a wicked grin implored his underling, “Bradley, let’s get a move on.” And with that he was off shaking hands and moving in all directions at once.

I remember thinking that up close Jack Layton looked a hell of a lot more attractive than he appeared when seen through the lens of the rag for which I was writing at the time. And while hindsight is just another euphemism for bullshit three years later he more than lived up to that promise only to be struck down yesterday in the cruelest way possible.

One bittersweet footnote to yesterday’s announcement was the presence on the dais of party president Brian Topp. In addition to being one of the more decent and brighter guys in Canadian politics Topp is a cancer survivor and, I can tell you, a great friend to Jack Layton. Last year he wrote a moving and brilliant piece in the Globe titled “Cancer’s Gift.”

In it he wrote:

“If you were diagnosed recently and are reading this at the start of your own search, here a few words I’ve read elsewhere that I like. Have heart: there are good options at whatever stage you’re at. Take charge: you’ll get lots of conflicting advice if you ask for it, and you will have to make some important decisions directly or by default. Take some time: the difference between the options are subtle and reward study. In particular, don’t make a decision the day you are given your diagnosis—you won’t hear most of what you’re told, and you need to hear it. Make a decision that feels right for you and then go forward. And then don’t look back.”

It put a tear in my eye then and as I reread it now thinking of those two happy warriors I’m reduced to a blubbering idiot.

Good luck Jack; you are among friends.