James Dee

Jim Dee, my beloved life partner of 41 years,  left this world on Friday June 6, 2025. His heart betrayed him--he died quite unexpectedly of some heart/stroke combination. I choose to believe that he has embarked on his next great adventure and that whatever and wherever that is in the space-time continuum, his spirit will be curious and excited, if not a bit surprised. Jim's first love in terms of a calling was music. He was an accomplished guitarist and his brother Joe formed a blues/rock band called Reaction that performed with some success in the Scituate area where he grew up.  Jim was charming, smart, quick witted, passionate about the state of the world, and always happy to engage in a debate about it. He found his true calling as a journalist for the Boston Herald, which took us to Belfast in 1998 (with our 3 month old son, Kiyo) just before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. In the six and a half years that he was based in Belfast, he was constantly on the go, covering politics and the ongoing conflict. He was a great journalist and with that same charm, persistence and intelligence, he was able to forge connections with not only politicians and community activists, but also paramilitary figures on both the Republican and Loyalist side. He was very proud of moving the narrative needle in the U.S. from the depiction of the Troubles as a Catholic vs Protestant religious conflict to seeing it as a long struggle against British colonialism. He found his true calling as a journalist and loved every minute of it. While the implosion of print journalism meant that he eventually had to find other work once we returned to Massachusetts, I will always remember him as a fierce, honest, principled and nuanced journalist. This is his professional legacy and how he would want to be remembered. His personal legacy was full of love, laughter, mischief and caring. If someone was feeling down, he'd be tenacious in bringing kindness, compassion and uplift. He loved his family and friends. He loved me. He loved his son Kiyo. We will miss him endlessly and depthlessly but also celebrate the legacy of his life and work. We wish him joy and happiness on his journey of whatever comes next.In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to LUCE, https://www.lucemass.org/, an immigrant rights organization in MA that is coordinating a rapid response network to support and protect people from ICE raids. (-Emily Kawano, Belchertown, MA)