Saturday, October 1, 2022
My sincere condolences to Chris's family. I have known, and have been close friends with Chris since September 1977 - I met him in George School, a Quaker boarding school. I was uptight and too serious, and Chris was one of the very few people who "got" me. . . We shared books and music, we wandered around New York City - he visited me several times in NYC when we were on break from George School - we wandered around, attending art gallery shows, esoteric art films, enjoying exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Chris was a year older than me, and accordingly, when I was 17, he was 18 and allowed us to bar-hop. Throughout these wanderings, we had so many deep conversations about religion, philosophy, history, Ireland, girls, and David Bowie. We both attended Earlham College, a Quaker college in Richmond, Indiana. In college we ran in separate circles - I dived head-first in Japanese and East Asian Studies, and Chris followed a course on Globalism and Religion. We did occasionally spend an evening together drinking beer and listening to music while having some of the best conversations I have ever had. Again, we swapped books, and discussed them. Chris, being a year ahead of me, graduated college, and we drifted apart for a few years. I learned that he was a medical officer in the US Air Force, and I was a Intelligence Officer. We both served in Iraq at the same time but never ran into each other, although we were stationed less than a mile apart. . . After my second tour in Iraq in 2007, I found Chris on the nascent Facebook, and we reconnected and direct messaged, sharing our thoughts about the war, about the world and ourselves. We "got" each other. We talked on the phone a few times in 2007, and I returned to Iraq for a 16-month tour and went on to Germany. While in Germany, I did temporary duty in Poland, and Chris and I reconnected and had wonderful conversations - Chris was a Subject Matter Expert (SME) on Poland and was very helpful. We drifted apart keeping in touch with brief Facebook messages. In 2018 Chris called me, and we had several phone calls between 2018 and 2022. Chris told me he had found the love of his life with his fiance, but that he was sick. Very sick. I promised to visit him in Maine. I kept putting it off. Chris asked me to be his best man at his planned marriage, I agreed. Chris told me that he had "always loved me like a younger brother." I loved him like a brother as well. I will sorely miss him. There is an emptiness in my heart when I think about the missed opportunities to get together for a reunion. The world is a poorer place without Chris.
