Things Worth Remembering: James Van Der Beek Was the Best of Us The ‘Dawson’s Creek’ star, who died Wednesday at 48, sought to teach his kids “how easy it can be to laugh, to love, to cry, to learn . . .and to find joy in both the plans and the detours alike.”
James Van Der Beek is pictured in Los Angeles on November 17, 1999. (Penske Media via Getty Images)
Welcome to Things Worth Remembering, our weekly column in which writers share a poem or paragraph that all of us should commit to heart. This week, Mary Katharine Ham remembers James Van Der Beek, the “Dawson’s Creek” star who died Wednesday at age 48—and on a 2021 message to his six children that distilled his extraordinary approach to life.
I was on my way to the gym when I heard of James Van Der Beek’s death Wednesday at the age of 48. It was not a surprise. I knew he was fighting cancer, thanks to my enduring obsession with the teen idol from my adolescence. The premiere of Dawson’s Creek in 1998 was the first time I ever hosted a watch party. I was 17 and invited my friends over to my parents’ basement. Not the kind you see all over social media now, with tasteful light fixtures and wainscoting, but one from a different time, with a broken-down Naugahyde sofa, a flickery Zenith set, and exposed ductwork. It was a place to hide teenagers away, and we were happy to snag snacks and settle in for our delectation at the hands of The WB, a new network that became known for its “beautiful angsty teenagers maybe having sex in beautiful nostalgic Americana landscapes.”...
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