L'Chaim!

I returned from Oregon with lots to write about -- a magnificent state, college visits, internet friendships, and a flight across our country -- but I also returned to the sad and horrifying news that a friend of ours had been killed in a bicycle collision with a truck a few days ago.  He worked with my husband for several years when we first lived here, so he and his wife were among the people we have known the longest.  He was an avid outdoorsman and he and my husband used to run together, back in the days when they were both training for marathons.  (In fact,  he had run Boston again this year.)  Although we had largely lost touch with them as a couple and I haven't seen his wife for several years, I encountered him periodically when I was out walking and he was running or biking.

This man was unusually present -- right there, always with something to say, full of life and energy and commentary.  I remember one conversation quite a few years ago in our back yard, when he had taken a water break from running and was reminiscing about our initiation into parenthood with twins.  He and his wife had had their children several years before our first were born.

"I remember you guys," he practically cackled with glee. "You had white couches!  Who has white couches?  Only people without children, that's who.  I love telling people about this, because when we came by after you had the kids there were poopy diapers on the living room floor.  Poopy diapers and white couches! Your lives had completely fallen apart!"

"I'm sure we did not have poopy diapers on the living room floor," I said icily.

"How would you know?" He thought that this was uproarious.  "You guys were complete zombies!"

He had clearly gotten a charge out of our fall from the grace of utter yuppiness into the chaos of parenthood and, as I told him, I was just so glad to know that he had shared this anecdote with other people.  Over the years, he continued to offer good-natured and empathetic reflections and insights into the passage of the parenting years, some of them humorous, some tinged with sadness and frustration, some grounded in biases not shared by all.

The last long conversation we had was on our front porch -- another water break -- probably just about a year ago, as I was agonizing over the impending cost of college and analyzing decisions made by other friends to insist that their children attend less expensive schools than those that were their first chocies. 

"Oh, that's such bull," he said, with characteristic bluntness.  "What am I gonna do, tell my kid that she can't go to the school she's worked for so I can have a few thousand dollars more for retirement?  How ridiculous.  That's not what parenting is about."

"Well, that's pretty much what all the financial experts say," I ventured.  "That we should be focusing on our retirement and not extending ourselves on college tuitions."

"It's all values," he responded.  "How much does some extra retirement matter as stacked up against your kid's education?  Really, it's just a few years.  So you work a few years longer; so what?"

This was not, I hasten to add, a wealthy person.  Comfortable, but no grand houses or vacation homes.  And, as it turns out, he won't ever get to that retirement, comfortably cushioned or not.  His life was far too short, expecially for someone who engaged in it as completely as he did.  He enjoyed his family, took great pride in his children and their achievements as young adults, reveled in conversation on every topic, and loved to run and bike.  I last saw him maybe a month ago, as I was walking around the lake and he and a friend passed on their bikes.  He called out a "hello" and was gone. It was just an ordinary day and there was no reason for me to think, after more than 25 years, that I wouldn't run into him again sooner or later.

If I had, I would have told him about where I'd been this week and urge that he get out there.  As it is, I'll just post this photo in memory of someone who had an expansive approach to life and to his adventures in the outdoors:

Columbia River Gorge