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In April of 2007, I had an email exchange with my friend Chris. We talked about silly stuff, like an online article about the rebirth of the boy band Menudo, and important stuff, like how he was looking for a law school. He’d visited Tulane and loved it, and he had snail mailed me some cool goodies from New Orleans. He was gearing up to visit another law school, this time in Hawaii. Selfishly, I didn’t want him to go to school in Hawaii; we seldom saw each other in person with our work lives in different parts of NC, but gosh, if he moved to Hawaii, that would be way too far apart. I was hoping he’d pick Tulane, and I’d get a great excuse to see New Orleans to visit him there.
In 2007, we were in our early thirties and we’d been friends since 8th grade. We’d made a pact that if we were both single at age 40 that we’d just go ahead and marry each other because a few decades of friendship sounded like as good a foundation for a marriage as anything else we’d heard. It’s worth noting when I mention the marriage idea that we didn’t have some big romance going on or anything like that; we’d just been friends seemingly forever and had the best time when we hung out together, so it was just one idea amongst thousands of other goofy things we’d talked about over the years in the way old friends talk about anything and everything. Chris was a good friend to me, just an energetic beacon of goodness, light and laughter.
On that trip to Hawaii with plans to visit a law school, snapping photos along the way as Chris did all the time as a photographer and environmental journalist, a local man on drugs took objection to the photography and landed a blow to Chris’ head that resulted in a fatal brain hemorrhage. Just like that, poof, all the promise, all the light…extinguished by one man’s anger under the influence.
I still dream that I am talking to Chris sometimes, always so vivid, that he’s called to say he’s coming back from some conference or another, that he’s grabbed boiled peanuts for me at the South Carolina state line and that he’ll stop by to visit before heading home. I dream that we laugh and listen to music. Last night, though, I had a dream that was just a repeat of the day I learned he’d passed away and the surreal drive to Apex for his service the next day…in the dream, I stood up and spoke briefly at his service just as I did in 2007 and in the dream, I drove home crying, 2007 all over again. I woke up crying. I miss my friend.
In 2007, I thought all the light went out when that stranger took his life, but all these years later I realize it didn’t, not really. Five lives were saved when Chris passed away by his decision to be an organ donor, so there is light and life still carrying on because of him. I smile when I think of the goofy conversations we had. I remember how much he loved his big sister, how he loved his mom, how he loved his dog and when we were older, how much he loved being an uncle. I still have the little voodoo protection doll he sent me from New Orleans, and I have the copies of CDs he made me to support his side of any argument over what band was better in any given discussion…those things make me smile. As long as Chris is not forgotten, the light has not gone out. I do feel sad, like today when I woke from the dream, but mostly I try to remember the good stuff, like eating pizza and drinking beer at Mellow Mushroom or even sitting together at the library desk in middle school where we were “working” (eating peppermints and being silly in hushed voices mostly). Chris changed my life for the better; he was sunshine, light, moonbeams, rainbows, ocean waves…all the good stuff a person could hope to be. Sure, he could be an absolute smartass, but mostly he was a loyal, good-hearted friend. Miss you much today, Chris, wherever you are, wherever we go when we leave these bodies behind.