MITCH TRAPHAGEN
The jet plane’s wheels had just touched the pavement of the runway at the Atlanta airport when I learned that I had lost my friend of 45 years. I was rushing up to see him. Instead, in the end, I spent five hours in his hospital room, selfishly, perhaps, begging God to wake him up.
Friends for 45 years. Best friends. I can only hope that you, dear reader, know what kind of gift that is to have someone in your life for that long. But now it seems so short.
The past 18 hours have been pure heartbreak and a blur of airplanes, airports and, in at least two cases, people who could sense something was wrong with the morose-looking middle-aged guy and took extra steps to be kind to me. Or perhaps they are just kind people.
Michelle and I were flying from New York to Tampa when an urgent Facebook message went out into the ether, through JetBlue’s in-flight Wi-Fi and into my computer while I was writing an article in the air. Our flight was an hour from Tampa when I learned Jon had suffered a devastating motorcycle accident. As the plane descended into Tampa, I lost Wi-Fi and lost myself in thought and prayers.
MITCH TRAPHAGEN PHOTO
Jon and my Mom from a few years ago. He always insisted on visiting her. After 45 years of friendship, they, too, were friends.
His sister sent me a text and then called to let me know that his family was gathering at the hospital to say goodbye. Just a little over nine hours after landing at Tampa International from New York, I was back at the Tampa airport to fly to Minneapolis.
Upon landing for a connecting flight in Atlanta, a very brief, eloquently written message arrived as I turned on my phone with the plane’s wheels just making contact with the pavement of the runway. Under different circumstances, given all that was involved, the short message could well have been considered beautiful. But the point of the message wasn’t beautiful at all.
My friend was gone.
The odd thing is that only a few days ago we were texting back and forth with our usual complaints about getting old and our young men’s dreams that remained unfulfilled, yet always with the underlying optimism of a “someday” fulfillment. At one point he wrote, “Don’t be going anywhere, man. I need you.”
I wish I could have told him that before he got on his motorcycle 18 hours ago. Because the truth is, I do need him. We have been friends for 45 years, and I can’t imagine my life without him. We lived a great distance apart but we always found ways to get together; some were under pleasant circumstances, others not so much. Our friendship remained through it all.
On one occasion, one in which we loaded up two former-hometown hotel rooms with guitars and mixing boards to play through headphones, we called it an early evening on reliving our rock-n-roll youthful past and hit the hotel bar.
After a few drinks, he got angry with me, for the first time, for something that happened 30 years ago. I had forgotten about it. I hadn’t thought about it, not the way he did. But for him it didn’t go away so easily. He was right to be angry. I need to think more. I need to be one hell of a lot less selfish. But now all that I can think about is what I didn’t do, and never corrected, and now never will.
Over the past few years when I was making frequent trips to visit my Mom in the memory care unit of a nursing home, Jon would invariably make the long, four-hour drive down to see me … and her. Few people, even immediate family members, really want to go into memory care units. But Jon always insisted. And then he would sit next to my Mom, and they would talk like old friends. She was always so happy to see him.
On his birthday a few years ago, my wife, Michelle, drove a rental car around the Minneapolis metro area as Jon and I hit one music store after another, checking out guitars, amps, keyboards and pedals, and between the stores, in the car, with Michelle more or less forced to listen, we made the same old jokes, the stuff of 45 years between friends. Michelle deserves sainthood for that, if nothing else, because I wouldn’t be surprised if we were both in the back seat laughing and chattering like teenage girls (except, perhaps, with a bit more profanity involved). Thanks to her, that day is a good memory.
But this year, I missed his birthday. For the first time since the advent of email and text messages, I missed his birthday. I sent the most serious email of our entire friendship in apology. He told me to not worry about it. That was just a few weeks ago. I’m still worrying about it.
Jon and I in our (much) younger days playing American tunes at the Ratskeller in Crailsheim, Germany. The U.S. soldiers in the crowd appeared to have as much fun as we did. In the end, we had a lifetime together.
But in with the tears I should really be mad at him, too. He should not have left. Not his Mom and family, not his young son, not those who loved him dearly, and whom he loved. So many people need Jon in so many ways. We all have faults and Jon was no exception. But of everyone I know, when push came to shove, Jon tried to do the right thing. For him, the right thing often involved acting in someone else’s best interest. He sacrificed for others and never complained about it. He was the most generous and talented person I’ve ever known.
This is not how things are meant to be. We are supposed to get old together, if even only electronically, with the same grousing about the things we didn’t do and laughing at the same jokes and some of the things that we actually did do.
He’s not supposed to be gone. He can’t be gone. He had dreams; he had plans. His son always came first and Jon’s plans included him. He found his passion again. It was wonderful and inspirational to see. The day he died was a beautiful one for a motorcycle ride in Minnesota. He was happy for so many reasons.
This flight from Atlanta to Minneapolis is the longest three hours of my life so far. I’m going to leave the airport, too late but as quickly as possible, drive to the hospital and hopefully tell him exactly what I think he knows he’ll hear from me.
And I’ll say those words that he would expect me to say because no matter what, no matter that he is somewhere else that I can’t begin to imagine or understand, he is my friend. He shall always be my friend. Life is just too short to contain something like that. Plus, he would have done the same for me, and probably more.
