This was originally shared as a Facebook post.
Jamie Dupree passed away unexpectedly on the morning of Sunday, May 8th, 2022 at home in Mobile, Alabama.
Jamie was 38 years old, and is survived by many who knew and cared about him, most especially his loving and devoted mother, Ruth E Belasco.
Although he kept a lower profile than his older brother Nick Dupree, Jamie was no less a newsmaker in his own right. In 1986, the Mobile Press-Register reported on Jamie, as one of the first children in the area to be living successfully at home while dependent on a ventilator, both surviving and thriving, which he did for much longer than was ever expected of him.
Link to that story on Nick‘s blog: 1986 Mobile Press-Register Article: on specialness and surviving
Jamie was inquisitive and geeky, an avid reader who also had a fondness for The Muppets, all kinds of science fiction and fantasy, video games, comic books, and more things than can be listed here.
At the start of 2022, he ran a month-long virtual event called “New Year, New Worlds 2022: A Month-Long Celebration of All Things Science Fiction”, which he had hoped to replicate and branch out into other genres over time.Jamie couldn’t speak much, and typing wasn’t always easy for him, but he was always observing, and using his energy to participate and communicate in the ways and spaces that were important to him.
He was a warm presence in communities focusing on geeky and nerdy pursuits for disabled folks, and will be particularly well-remembered on a Discord server where he made it a point to welcome each new member as soon as he could.
In recent times, Jamie had become a loving pet guardian to a community cat named Mister, and she was becoming more and more attached to the idea that maybe this person was her person (as he was to the idea that cats, are in fact, the bosses of us all).
Jamie will now rest next to Nick, the once-inseperable brothers now no longer separated by distance or time, or the barriers presented by complicated lives, which were still always lives worth living, and worth remembering forever.
Link to official announcement of Jamie’s passing: OBITUARY : Jamison Reid DUPREE
(Photo by Kiichiro Sato)
(We know Nick remembered that dinosaur bath towel fondly.)
Me (left) and Jamie. 1987, Mobile.
Nick has a freckled face, his hands around Jamie’s shoulders as Jamie leans his head into Nick’s.
Jamie had also said of this photo:
A rare opportunity to see me without an NG tube in this era.
