Larry

A friend of mine died three weeks ago, not someone I was terribly close to, but someone who stepped into my family's sphere 20 years ago and made a difference. So I have to stop and recognize the passing of Larry Pickworth.

Larry was just starting out as a chiropractor in 1986, fresh out of school and opening an office on the West Side called Hilltop Chiropractic. His new bride Kathleen Jones, also a chiropractor, was his professional partner as well, and they had big plans. Gven Golly was their office manager, receptionist, problem solver, and was instrumental in the success of the business.

You could say they bonded. Larry and Kathleen had graduated from Life Chiropractic College in Atlanta; Gven grew up in Atlanta. They were coming home to Ohio to start their professional lives as we were moving to Ohio to go back to school. A few months into that first year, Gven made the decision to study massage therapy, seeing the need and the opportunity; Larry and Kathleen gave her a massage table for Christmas. We had two little kids, one of whom would later babysit for their two little kids.

There were differences, of course. Larry was 100 percent Buckeye, an ardent fan and booster of everything Ohio State. I was more blase about the football team and my student tickets, which were like gold to him. He was hard-working, ambitious, careful with money, and skilled in his profession, but without my intellectual pretensions or interests. They did very well. In a few years, they moved from the apartment over their office to a big house with a pool in Upper Arlington. They drove nice cars, went on exotic vacations, and their girls went to private schools.

Gven worked with Larry for a couple of years but got to know Kathleen pretty well. They started a book group that met once a month for several years, and they both developed a social/professional network of women in health-related work, so they have many mutual friends and colleagues around this big small town.

Larry had some health issues a few years ago involving an irregular aorta that forced him to slow down from his hard-driving pace. He seemed to have recovered and adapted well but recently had an episode that put him down for the count. His funeral was a packed house of somber folks - working-class, ruling-class, old, young, OSU athletes, independent women, a real central Ohio cross-section - laughing and crying over this guy dying way too young, leaving a wife and two little girls. It was one of those gray, rainy January days when everything seems overcome by gravity.