July 19: The older I get, the more my memories resemble a cemtery.

 My regular readers may have, by now, tired of my constant mentioning of my best friend, Jason, who died in the spring of 2009 after a short battle with bone cancer. I still miss him and I think about him everyday. He was only 36 when he passed, would never have to "officially welcome middle age" by turning 40. If he were still with us, I'm sure that we would have enjoyed so many conversations about the pitfalls of getting older. 

Old men tell me that when they read the newspaper, the first thing they look at is the obituaries. They want to know which of their friends have died.

-

I was honoured that Jason's family asked me to speak at his funeral. I was to speak on behalf of his friends. I was preceded by his two sisters, both of whom read suitably melancholy pieces that the mourned the loss of their big brother. I took a different tack. I decided to be funny. I did not do this out of disrespect; anyone who knew Jason knows that he would have wanted us to have a good time at his farewell service. But it was also self-preservation. I knew that if I didn't go to one extreme, I'd break down in front of that crowd that was stuffed full of Jason's friends and family.

-

I considered Jason to be my best friend for almost all of my life. From the time we met in kindergarten until the day he died. I guess I still consider him my best friend. 

At the funeral, I told this story:

I was always in awe of Jason. I am exactly eight days older than him but you'd never know it looking at us. He was always bigger than me, both figuratively and literally. He was talented, charismatic, exciting, boisterous, and too darned smart for his own good. So many times I felt unworthy to be his friend. I was a naive dolt compared to that mountain of a guy.

One Saturday evening during the summer between fifth and sixth grades, I was sleeping over at his house. Somehow, I got the totally rebellious idea that when it got dark, we should sneak out of the house and go down to - wait for it - 7-Eleven. There we would do all sorts of nefarious things like... buy Slurpees.

When darkness descended upon Casa Jason, we went about the business of sneaking out of the house. We were almost at the front door when I heard the most terrifying sound in the universe, which was the voice of Jason's dad.

"Jason, get in here," his dad said from his bedroom. So Jason went into his dad's room and I was outside trembling with fear that both of us were in big trouble for trying to sneak out and I was going to get sent home and Jason would be grounded for the whole school year and he would be mad at me for the rest of his life because sneaking out had been my dumb idea.

But that didn't happen. Instead, Jason's dad gave him some money so we could buy junk at 7-Eleven. He had only one provision, we had to bring him back a Burnt Almond chocolate bar.

So we walked to 7-Eleven. Jason was having a grand old time talking about Led Zeppelin and why he thought they were better than Motley Crue and Ozzy Osbourne. I was not having a good time. I wanted to be a rebel. I wanted to have put a fast one over Jason's parents.

Jason wasn't at all keen on spending the rest of the night with a stick in the mud, so he got me laughing. How did he do that? He made the following observation:

"You know, I'm pretty sure that my old man is the only person in the world who would specifically ask for a Burnt Almond chocolate bar. I mean... ask most people what kind of candy bar they want and they'll say Snickers or Mars or Coffee Crisp. But my dad... Burnt Almond all the way."

Probably not as funny on paper as it was in real life, but I found it so funny that I hit the ground.

-

<Insert heavy sigh here.>

I miss those days, you know? I miss that brief period of time when we were just old enough to be by ourselves at home for a while. 12, 13, 14... ringing in New Years' Eve together. Playing stupid tabletop role playing games or making wildly offensive radio shows that cast our jolly French teacher as a flatulent foul-mouthed hooligan. I miss laughing so hard that I barfed in my Coke. I miss being a kid, having a best friend who lived only a couple blocks away, and believing that life and youth were never-ending.