True story.

They pulled up to the foot of our driveway, and he spilled out of the passenger seat, gripping our mailbox to gain some traction; but still losing his footing on the slushy ice at the base. He picked himself up, brushed pointlessly at his soaked pant leg, and made his way to our front porch. It was about 10:00 a.m. and he was totally shitfaced. I greeted him at the door, and he grabbed me in a rough side hug, squeezing hard while getting a good feel of my flesh beneath my shirt. He spun me toward my husband, pointed at my breasts and said, “Can you believe the rack on this woman?!”

::silence::

They left on their winter camping trip, and, aside from the stories thrown around after they returned, we didn’t hear of him for several years.

He rose again after getting sober and proposing to the woman who did her best to stand by him through most of those tumultuous years.

Not long after their wedding, he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. It started in his lungs, through the obvious cause, and spread undetected until there was no possibility of reversal. Treatment prolonged his original prognosis of twelve months, though it robbed him of his rockstar blond locks that brushed at the small of his back, and turned him grayish and puffy and stark-eyed.

We visited him in hospice several weeks ago. Somehow he seemed to have more life than we had seen in him in some time, and we questioned quietly among ourselves if this was really it. He talked about a project he wanted to collaborate with us on when he got out, and again, we eyed one another, silently asking, “Does he know where he is?” He did or he didn’t.    

Epilogue:
Is this the best story I could have told about our friend? No. But it is the most memorable for me. This was the moment of his plummet; but somehow he made it back to the surface. Only to be taken down again. Not sure what I mean to say by this. Except that he was at times a total wreck, and other times just a mischievous rebel. He was a good guy and he will be missed.