#829 Smiling and thinking of good friends who are gone

big-feetI met Chris Kim in September, 2005 in Boston.

A tiny Korean guy with thin eyes hidden behind thick glasses under a well-worn and faded ball cap, he looked kind of mousy under awkwardly baggy clothes and behind a soft voice. And even though neither of us drank much, we met at a bar — me speed-sucking a gin and tonic through a needle-thin straw, him warming a well-nursed beer and occasionally taking baby sips.

When he mentioned he was from Boston, I asked about the Red Sox and he played along well enough. “Big win last night,” he offered cautiously. “Maybe still have a chance at the playoffs?” Of course, that launched me on a rant about the bullpen and whether Curt Shilling had enough steam for another big run. He nodded on, listening intently, asking genuine and serious questions, and letting our friendship take root over sports, of all things. Of course, he never watched the stuff, but was nice enough to let me talk mindlessly about it all night.

grand-canyonFull of wry smiles, awkward pauses, and mock-serious faces, Chris was a complex, fascinating, creative person who grew into a remarkably close friend during the two years I lived in the US. He got excited about little things, like caramelizing onions perfectly for an hour on low heat, getting randomly selected to fill out a survey of his radio habits, or learning a new keyboard shortcut in Microsoft Excel.

But it wasn’t the bar scene that helped our friendship bloom. It was the car scene.

hoover-damYeah, when I showed up to school on our first winter morning shivering to the bone in a flimsy nylon coat, my hair wet, my face dripping, Chris asked where I lived and if I needed a ride the next day. As I was at that moment toweling my face off with a fistful of balled up Kleenex, I took him up on it right away. (Lucky for me Chris had signed up to be a senior student in an undergrad residence way off campus, spending his free time for two years chaperoning social events, holding heads above toilets, and editing two or three resumes a night on a steady clip.)

malibuAnyway, he began picking me up every morning for the next two years, probably at least a couple hundred rides, never once accepting money for gas because, as he said, “I’m going that way anyway.” When other students heard about my taxi service, they got in on it, too. It started with a “Hey Chris, if there’s a blizzard tomorrow, can I catch a lift?”, and turned into Chris emailing three or four of us each night, giving us the Bus Schedule, as he called it, timed precisely to the minute for the next morning. And so it went — us piling into his car after he’d spent the first few minutes warming it up for us, tightly blanketed in fat mittens and his trademark big blue hat.

golden-gate-bridgeTwo years later, in Spring, 2007, Chris and I went on a three week roadtrip with our friend Ty, which I’ve mentioned before here and here. Not too long after the trip began, we started joking about how much Chris was text-messaging his friends. It was non-stop, how in touch he was constantly with people. “Jake says hi,” he’d deadpan, his back facing the Grand Canyon, surrounded by people all looking the other way. Eventually, he made a joke of it, letting us take photos of him obliviously focused on his cell phone in front of every big site we stopped at. He absolutely loved the gag and laughed wildly before and after each photo.

chicago-millennium-parkLast year I nervously started up this page, tentatively dipping my toe into cyberspace where anyone could see. Chris of course adopted his Mexican half-brother pseudonym San Carlos and peppered us with comments of support from the get-go. On #1000 Broccoflower, he wrote “My policy is to avoid all foods that look to be from outer space. Eggplant. Mushrooms. And, apparently, broccoflower.” On #885 Paying for something with exact change he wrote “I save all my pennies in my car. And then, the next time I do McDonald’s drive-through, I fling all the pennies into the server’s face. … No, actually, I put the pennies into the Ronald McDonald’s House box right underneath the window.” On #859 Playing with a baby and not having to change its diaper he wrote “I don’t mind changing my nephews diapers. It only got weird when they began to talk. Awkward!”

cn-towerI loved his sense of humor and his way about himself. I loved how he laughed, frequently, at little things, and got so excited about tiny details most people overlooked. Chris and I spoke three or four times a week over the past year, in ten or fifteen minute snippets usually, but sometimes for an hour or two. He’d tell me about the sourdough bread he was going to bake that day, the elaborate meal he had planned for friends coming for dinner, or the New York Times article he read that I should check out. I would ask him for ideas for this page  — he had plenty — and occasionally go on long rants about sports.

Chris died suddenly this past week. He was 32.

No amount of the usual closing rhyming couplets or fist-to-the-sky proclamations are going to bring him back. But I know he’s in a peaceful place and would want us all to just be happy, keep plugging, and enjoy our lives as full as we can. So thank you, Chris. You’ll always inspire me.

And you’ll always be so incredibly awesome.

This entry is in The Book of Awesome

chris-and-his-sourdough-bread

282 thoughts to “#829 Smiling and thinking of good friends who are gone”

  1. Oh, Man! That just brought me to tears. Cherish those friendships, cherish love and happy times, because “we’re here for a good time, not a long time”. And above all, be grateful for the friends who are in your life now. I will try to remind myself of that everyday. Peace.

  2. Crying at your desk about someone you never met, on a website you just stumbled across today – AWESOME

  3. Beautiful memorial to your good friend. So young to have passed away….but by the sounds of it Chris touched a lot of lives and will never be forgotten.
    I love this site….keep up your wonderful work!
    kathy

  4. I just found out about your site recently, and I love it! When I red this part I was deeply touched. Beautiful! It brings tears to my eyes cuz, it is as sad as it is beautiful.

    (Don’t mind the spelling,… I’m from Belgium). :)

  5. Great site. Sorry for your loss but this one really touched me. #829 is so true for anyone who has lost a close friend. Their memories live on though…thanks for this one.

  6. i know i’m kind of late on this but i just found your blog last week. i have read them all starting with 1000, and most of the comments, so i have seen San Carlos many times. to know that his wit will never make its appearance just in the comments on your blog makes me incredibly sad.

    at least you have many good memories of him, and in those he will never truly be gone.

  7. I must say this is your best post, so far..and I read these post every morning when I get to work….This warmed my heart and keep going this is a great website…to look at every morning…..KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!

  8. to the author,

    First of all, let me say that this piece was wonderful and touched me deeply. Secondly, I arrived here via stumbleupon and, as such, am not acquainted with your writing style or your previous work. However, if I were forced to make a criticism, it would be your use of emboldening passages. According to current internet stylization, the standard way of shouting is by typing in all capitals, and in my opinion, emboldening is scarcely less confrontational. Again, this is only my opinion, but boldface type is similar in many ways to the use of the exclamation mark. Frequent use can border on cheesy. If used regularly, it loses all meaning. Honestly, what drove you to include it in nearly every sentence? I’m not trying to be derogatory, I am genuinely intrigued by your thought process in that respect. Please, if there is any rationale behind your boldface usage, please let me know. I am a bit of a nerd when it comes to the day-t0-day changes in usage of the English language.

  9. wow man, im a seventeen yr old guy, who is genuinely emotionaly void. and that brought a tear to my eye.

  10. I camd across your website.. and so many things have brought a smile to my face… somehow i came across this post and i read through the whole thing. your friend sounds like an amazing person with a great heart. this is my first time ever commenting on someones post, – but i had to because I was so moved by what you wrote about your friend. god bless

  11. I really enjoyed your post. I was really touched by your tribute to your friend Chris. There is a Chris in every one of us. Humans are basically good and the good comes out very naturally when we see our fellow human beings in need. We can all make a difference if we only but try. There is love and peace everywhere in the world when we take the time to care.

  12. I was just clicking through when I had to stop at this title, and read… it was so touching, and it forced me to cry… I have never lost somebody very close to me, but a friend of mine has cancer and has less than a year to live, so I can get a small glimpse of the feeling. This is a wonderful tribute to your friend.

  13. My best friend just recently died. It’s the one thing I have been thinking about these last few weeks. But after reading this, I feel a peaceful. i don’t know how to explain it. All I have to really say is, thank you.

  14. It’s those friends that were always so great for no apparent reason that stick with us to the end.

    I often smile when I think of friends lost, as well.

    Sorry for you loss but it seems the journey will always be remembered.

  15. You, sir, just made my night. I was seriously touched. I am in the Marine Corps, and this one hits home hard. Loss is a thing we hear of often, and this something huge to me and my fellow Marines.

  16. A little over two years ago I lost three good freinds in a car accident. Through my life I’ll have my burdens to carry and obsticals to overcome, I’ll always be able to find some comfort in all the fun memories we have shared thinking of them help my struggles in life seem a little easier to handle. Miss you guys Carlos Cory and Jesus …. Rest in peace Chris and thank you

  17. … wow… i dont even know what to say… very touching… thats a very cliche, impersonal thing to say, im sorry. but it really is, and thats all i can come up with.

  18. A very touching post. I, too, have lost friends recently; a roommate unexpectedly to natural causes and a very close life-long friend to suicide. Remembering the good times is what keeps everything together in the aftermath of death.
    I am sorry for your loss.
    Dave O.

  19. How sad that some people have to go. It seems so unfair.
    But how nice that you can remember a dear friend in such a lovely way. And that you can comort from thinking he is in a tranquil world somewhere.
    This is, by far, the most heart-felt tribute that I have ever read. Your friend must have been an awesome person.

  20. The automatically generated related post is tinged with huge coincidence. I first read “taking the stairs and taking the escalator” as the metaphor for “going to hell and going to heaven”, and the way you wrote this post made me feel like the phrase

    “Taking the stairs beside somebody taking the escalator”

    meant something like “Walking for a short time beside someone truly awesome.”

  21. My favorite post of all – so beautiful, it made me cry. We all have a Chris, I wish I knew yours :)

  22. As per usual I’m a day late and a dollar short with leaving a comment (almost a year later, anyone??), but this really made me smile. For one, the pictures are hilarious. It’s awesome that you still have that inside joke left =) Chris sounds like an amazing person and you were so lucky to have had a friend like him.

  23. Me neither, i’ve been reading this blog for a while and never commented.. but this one was incredible…what a great friend…sorry to hear he’s gone.

  24. I just started reading this blog, and as I was scrolling through topics, I stumbled upon this one. I decided to read it, being as today is the one year anniversary of my friend’s death. It brought tears to my eyes and it truly showed how much you loved Chris. RIP, to both your friend Chris, and my friend Ian.

  25. hi, i know this post is quite old, but i just discovered your website and i’m reading thru all of them.

    this is the first time i am commenting like so many other people. i am sorry for your loss.

    i only hope that we can all have a friend like yours in our lifetime

  26. Now that’s how to celebrate someone! I’m sure your friend would love it, well done. This reduced me to tears and brightened my mood simultaneously ;) Awesome.

  27. What a beautiful tribute to your friendship. I’m saddened, thinking of your loss. Makes me want to go out and hug all the people who are important to me. Life is too short.

  28. I’ve never met you, nor did I meet Chris – but this post made me fall in love with both of you.

    Thank you so much. Much love from Portugal.

  29. After reading your posts about Chris I almost feel like I’ve been introduced to a person I immediately know I would want to be good friends with. I could never really meet him but it’s wonderful getting to know an awesome person via your descriptive, nostalgic, loving posts. Your appreciation of friendship reminds me of my own; for a long while I felt I couldn’t rely on family members and so my friends let me rely on them. I still rely on them and I feel so lucky to have incredible friends. I’m also lucky that I’ve never lost any of my friends, I fear the day that I do. When that day comes I may just have to refer back to your posts about the undeniably awesome Chris Kim.

  30. I just found out that one of my good friends from kindergarten passed over the weekend, I lost touch with him after middle school after we both went to the different highschools in 0ur city. I known people who died, but they were never really my friends, but after i found out this kid, who I’ve known for 12 years (17 years old now) It really hits home and I can connect with everything writtin in this post. R.I.P. Kevin and R.I.P. Chris.

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