Joel Pett writing in the Sacramento Bee:
This past year, as he battled his mystifying, excruciating disease, he became one of my closest and most admired friends. He tried to teach me things, big, important things about life’s priorities, the utter foolishness of wasting energy on, well, the things we all waste it on.
I last saw him three weeks ago at his home. He was in agonizing discomfort, but we walked in the park, watched NCAA hoops, read The Bee and sat in his hot tub. It was in that hot tub that I got a final, poignant look at how bravely he confronted what was clearly by then a losing battle. Groaning in pain to hoist himself in, he settled back with a twisted grimace etched on his face. In a few seconds, the grimace gave way to a soft smile, and Rex opened his eyes, looked at me and said softly: “Life is sweet.”
Joel will be one of the speakers at a public memorial on the 15th of April along with Jack Ohman.
