Steve at Districts in the Rain

Remembering a friendship that could have been

Today’s newsletter is serious because every April 9th I think about my old friend Steve. He died in December 2021 and he would have been 36 years old today. We lost touch ten years ago, but I think about him every time I run, and again every time I see lightning strike.

I think we all have someone like Steve in our lives when we’re growing up. Someone perfect and gifted. Someone about whom we feel deep envy and deep admiration. Someone with whom we wish we were closer, because we would be honored to be trusted with their feelings. One of my biggest regrets is that Steve and I never got to that point before he died.

My friend Isaac recently asked me why I spend so much time making jokes about who I was when I was ten or fifteen, and the only answer I can come up with is that your sensory experiences of the world are so much deeper and more intense during that period because of what’s happening in your body, so they feel much richer—even twenty years later—than your memories even a few months ago. For example, whenever I come across the word “sob” in literature and I want to imagine that physical sensation, I don’t recall my own sobbing from any time in my adulthood; instead I recall the icy Sunday when I was dumped in seventh grade and the intensity of the weeping that followed. That day will be “sob” for the rest of my life. 

But the intensity of witnessing beauty during that time likewise etched itself in what I regard as meaningful, magical, and even mythological from an everyday perspective.

And the moment that capped that year was Steve at districts in the rain. Before we had a semblance of friendship, all I knew of Steve was that he was a phenomenal athlete. And as I floundered on the track team, finding that I had as little skill as I did commitment to increasing it, I saw that Steve was as close as you can come to being touched.

At our district track meet in May 2001, the rain was unforgiving, and dark clouds threatened to scuttle the entire event. But officials decided to let it proceed. I don’t remember what I was running that day, but it doesn’t really matter. Because when all the best milers from grades seven, eight, and nine lined up, everyone was watching Steve.

Even before the race, Steve was so beautiful and focused—a trademark of his charisma in the following years—that his stillness in the rain hushed every onlooker. The gun went off, and Steve began the effortless engagement of his limbs. I can’t give an adequate description of it, but watching Steve run was like watching a maple tree samara whirl through the air, or a dolphin leap from the water. His body was in harmony in with its purpose, and all I know is that watching Steve embody the motion he was so obviously built for made me like I was witnessing a kind of greatness. I’d never seen such grace, nor will I ever again, because Steve will be “grace” for the rest of my life.

As he ran down the final hundred meters, accelerating further and picking off other runners one-by-one, a bolt of lightning struck outside the stadium grounds. Steve crossed the finish line, and his time— 4:50—is burned into my memory forever. 

We became friends in the years that followed until the end of high school and through college, but we always had a certain tension that bordered on rivalry. It may have been in the way we wanted to impress each other—with our humor, with our accolades, I don’t know. But it was an unhelpful jockeying that barred us from any real intimacy in friendship.

Our last text exchange was from September 2014, and it seemed that, perhaps, our walls were coming down. I had filmed a movie, and Steve reached out to congratulate me. I suggested we get together, and Steve’s last message was, “I’d like that.” No jokes, no shit given, just an honest sentiment: “I’d like that.” 

That’s also burned into my memory. It’s the closest we ever got. I’d like to think it could have been the beginning of a real bond, one absent competition or posturing. But I never set the date, so that’s on me. I guess I thought I’ve have our whole lives to figure it out. Instead, I let it get away.

Today must be an impossible day for his family. 

Steve, I’m so sorry that I never set the date. Maybe that’s why I take you with me on every run. And every time that lightning strikes, I feel that one moment, long ago, when the promise of what we had to gain seemed limitless. That moment will always be “lightning” for me.