Roughly ten years ago, we were going to music festivals together and making out in a tent. He was devastatingly handsome and I was not sure I was worthy.
We met through a college friend (that I still think is awesome, surprisingly) and the three of us had wild and sporratic adventures that were never much planned but always fun. We had stupid fun, with childish trips to ValleyScare and XFest, house parties and late night sprinkler runs. Even when he got a steady pain-in-the-ass girlfriend and started needing more relationship advice and meaningful talks about life than a drinking buddy, he remained in good humor. We connected. We took our dogs to obedience school together and they almost got expelled (actually, his was a dropout). We were real friends, the kind of friend where when you see each other again after years have passed, you're still at ease and nothing has affected that bond. He made me believe that we didn't have to grow up.
Except now we do have to grow up, because he's dying from the brain tumor that is killing him, the one that knocked him in his ass 3 years ago and stole everything. He squeezed as much as he could out of those last few years; he immediately married a pretty awesome lady and had a son, and did what he could to make sure he was fighting like hell. But Cancer is Cancer. 35 is way too early to say goodbye and leave the party. 35 is still the age of weddings and babies and astronomical mortgages, of career changes and waking up to politics, of a few failed relationships, class reunions, or maybe some crazy adventures to cool countries. It's the peak before the decline.
Aaron, you're the one that got away.
Life is a gift, albeit brief. Cancer can be a love story if it is done with strength and weathered by two people who have enough faith in what is within them and beyond them. Here is their story. I hope seeing the documentary when it is completed helps to bring me closure. Right now I can't find any in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
No comments:
Post a Comment