I hadn’t seen my friend Rick Day in about 10 years.
It was, I think, the summer after I finished cancer treatment. We met at a bar, along with our mutual friend, Rod.
There were copious amounts of beer. And laughter. Reminiscing.
The three of us, and our friends Lydia, Lisa, Nina, Laura and Stephanie, met while working at the Dairy Queen on Northwestern Avenue in Racine. The DQ is long gone but the building was still standing last I checked. It appeared to be the world’s tiniest dive bar.
Those summers at Dairy Queen, though.
We were a living John Hughes 80s movie. The Breakfast Club in an ice cream (ice milk, excuse me) shop.
Collectively, we were tight. Although we represented at least three high schools, we clicked. We enjoyed working together.
Inside jokes abounded.
We still think and sing “Raspberry Parfait” anytime we hear Prince’s “Raspberry Beret.”
We all hung out together when we weren’t working. The sepia toned memories of those beautiful people always makes me smile.
And Rick. Rick was my best friend. Ride or die.
Funny thing is, we couldn’t have been more opposite.
He was the studly good-looking, charming star athlete, skilled at soccer and basketball. Drove the cool car.
I was the goofy-looking, giant, awkward bookish writer and nerd. Didn’t drive until it was time to go off to college in my 1978 Pontiac Volare.
I helped him pass English class. He helped me land a prom date.
We had conversations late into the night, in the front yard, under the stars. Laughing about everything and nothing. Talking about nothing and everything.
Even when we went away to college, which really wasn’t going that far away, just opposite ends of the big city of Milwaukee.
First person I called because I needed someone when my dad died.
Ride or die.
December 8, 1990.
After the EMTs. After telling my sister, my mom and, one at a time, my brothers. After driving over to tell my grandparents their only child was gone. After the funeral home guys came and went.
As family and friends began gathering at the house late into the night.
Everything happened and was still happening and I needed to get the hell out of that house.
Rick was there. Maybe it was an hour, maybe it was three minutes. I got in his car and we drove. And talked. We may even have prayed. I needed that time to steel myself for the days ahead.
Ten years is too damned long. And it was too many years before that.
Rick and Kelly, his beautiful girlfriend (hi new friend), were in Gatlinburg. We met for lunch at a place on their route back to Wisconsin.
The years disappeared. Same guys. A few years older and a few pounds heavier. But the same guys.
Guys who have lived through some stuff and seen some things.
His parents are gone. My mom lost her second love a year ago. Sarah is caring for her aging mom. I live with the after effects of cancer.
We talked about the loss of our friend, Stephanie, and friends of Rick’s that I knew from those days, to fucking cancer. Stephanie died four years ago, which still breaks my heart.
We talked about work. Mused about retirement. Discussed his son, his sister, my brothers and sister and their families.
I shared my favorite Thanksgiving story, in which my Southern mother-in-law had a preconceived notion that I was an uppity Yankee and cleaned her house until the whole place sparkled. Then I watched her eyes bug out as I propped my elbow atop the short refrigerator, the one surface she had forgotten to wipe down.
We laughed.
We shared lessons learned about life.
Everything happens. How we respond is what matters.
We need to live in the moment.
And be present for each other.
The lesson we learn sometimes all too late.
All we have is right now.
This moment.
Lunch.
All we had was our lunch time together. Nothing else was promised. It never is.
We enjoyed the time we three — Rick, Kelly and I — had together.
Let’s do it again.
Soon.
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