June 05, 2005

pictures

While rummaging around looking for something else today, I ran across a picture of Steve Hamby. He's taking a picture of ME taking a picture of HIM at my wedding in 1992. I laughed when I saw that photo, because I right away imagined the picture-within-a-picture thing going to infinity.

Then, I sat on the floor and looked closely at the photograph. It was taken 12 years before Steve died. His hair and beard are still jet-black in that picture, and he's googling at the camera with a silly grin the way somebody full of champaigne does at a joyous wedding.

His hair turned gray silver shortly thereafter. He went through a lot of shit and died miserably from prostate cancer long before his time should have been up. I visited him often before he died, because we both went through the same shit with that disease. I got lucky and survived, at least so far. Steve was unlucky and he died.

I would have traded places with him if I could have. Steve had a wife and two children who loved him. I had an ex-wife trying to kill me in court if the cancer didn't get me first. While Cindy and the kids were praying for Steve, Jennifer was still taking out court orders and sending sheriff's deputies to visit me. Fuck a duck! Why did fate take him instead of me? I WANTED to go. He didn't.

But that's the way it works sometimes. His expiration date was up and mine wasn't. I'm still here, looking at his picture. I miss him a lot. But I can say one thing with heartfelt pride.

I was his friend.