Standing next to me in this 2008 Concord United team photo is John Bemis. Twelve years my senior, we only played soccer together for two seasons before he retired his cleats. Even so, we developed a friendship that endured off the field. He is possibly the warmest and most caring person I have ever known. This morning, Jamie, his wife of 40 years was struck and killed by a car as she crossed Thoreau Street in Concord. The 91-year old woman driving the car drove on for some fifty feet before coming to a stop and it took rescuers twenty minutes to extricate the body from under the car. Jamie will be remembered for her philanthropic work and as the founder of Gaining Ground, now a nonprofit organic farm that grows vegetables and fruit with the help of several thousand community volunteers and donates all of this fresh food to area meal programs and food pantries. John will discover how deeply loved he is by all that have come to know him.