Last laugh: ‘God … was using him to teach joy’

SPRINGFIELD — Aaron Jamison, the local comedian and graphic artist who drew international media attention last year when he sold advertising space on urns to pay for his own cremation and funeral costs, died Sunday after a 2½-year battle with colon cancer.

He was 38.

Jamison, the subject of a Sept. 25 profile in The Register-Guard’s Oregon Life section, was given an estimated six months to live when he was diagnosed in February 2009. But he survived another two years, and his widow, Kristin Jamison, thinks there are a couple of reasons for that.

“Some of it was because he was such a big guy — they were able to give him a lot more chemo,” she said of her husband, who weighed about 400 pounds and admitted to battling a food addiction much of his life.

“And I think God had something planned for him and was using him to teach joy,” Kristin Jamison said. “So I think when he finally went, he had completed his purpose here.”

It wasn’t just Aaron Jamison’s selling ad space on three urns — one of which will go to his wife, one to his parents and one to best friend Tim O’Donnell — that brought him media attention and a plethora of friends and admirers who followed his story on his blog, www.judasforgiven.com, and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, his wife said.

It was also his decision to use humor to deflate the depression of dying young, to “choose joy,” a phrase the Jamisons printed on thousands of bracelets they gave away despite not having money to pay for medical bills.

Aaron Jamison sold 14 ads to businesses and groups for $100 each, his wife said. But that $1,400 will not go to cremation or funeral costs, but rather make a small dent in a pile of medical bills, she said.

The Portland branch of the Neptune Society, a national cremation business, has offered to cover the cremation costs, Kristin Jamison said.

And when Southwest Airlines heard about Aaron Jamison’s story, and that his parents, Ray and Jan Jamison, moved to Troy, N.Y., earlier this year and could not afford to return for their son’s memorial service Saturday at Springfield High School, the airline paid for their round-trip flights, Kristin Jamison said.

Aaron Jamison graduated from Springfield High in 1991.

Aaron Jamison hand-painted his urns with the logos of the businesses that advertised on them, including two ads bought by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

One of those ads reads, “I’ve kicked the bucket — have you? Boycott KFC,” with a slash through a cartoonish rendition of the fried chicken franchise’s Colonel Sanders.

Jamison also made cancer-themed T-shirts, including one with a rainbow and the words “Cancer Sucks” on the front.

He wore it in 2009 when he won the Eugene Laff-Off comedy competition with a set that was heavy on cancer jokes.

“I was going to have to find a way to make some of those people smile,” he told The Register-Guard recently. “My goal was just to make people realize they had a choice.”

One of the businesses that bought an ad, the Cry Baby Ink tattoo shop at Valley River Center, gave him free tattoos that seemed to temporarily divert his pain, including a tattoo on the back of his neck that read, “Best on or before 8-24-2009,” a reference to his six-month diagnosis.

“I don’t know if it’s brave — but it’s the right thing to do,” Jamison told The Register-Guard last year, of his selling ad space on urns.

“I want to have fun. I don’t want to die pouting.”