Bogart Salzberg was just 36 when doctors diagnosed him with terminal brain cancer in 2011. With death looming, the Portland man, whose varied past included stints as a woodworker and newspaper journalist, resolved to chart age 40 “as the outer edge” of his remaining life.

Salzberg died Jan. 6, at that very age. But he fought to defy the odds, living longer than most patients diagnosed with his rare form of cancer and facing death head on, publishing chronicles of his search for meaning while paddling Maine waters as his disease progressed.

“I’ve done everything I could wish for,” Salzberg said in an interview last fall, struggling to speak and move as his brain cancer advanced.

“I’m not bitter about it or angry about it,” he said. “I’m thankful for it if anything. I wish Icould have gotten a few more years … but I feel like I truly lived.”
 
His loved ones gathered to celebrate and remember his life Wednesday on East End Beach in Portland.

 

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