Forever Young

Tuesday is Max's birthday. He would have been 27. It's been almost nine months since his death, and the pain of it is still so raw and searing. Since Max's death our group of friends has become close once again (though the magic of Facebook!), exchanging our typical loving and caustic banter and planning reunions. But I miss them, I miss Max, and even though I have made so many fabulous friendships and had so many fabulous experiences in the years since leaving Phoenix, I think I will always be haunted by the fleeting perfection of that time, that group of friends, that level of absolute trust and love and comfort.



While the title of this post may seem a bit cliche and cheesy, I chose it because it reminds me of one particular moment that I will remember forever. We had been up in Springerville, where Max was from (and the site of many happy memories), for Memorial Day weekend. It had been an absolutely incredible weekend of escape from Phoenix's inferno and white hot skies. We drank lattes made with Mexican chocolate, cured our hangovers at Max's grandmother's restaurant, were overwhelmed by the amount of stars we could see, and passed out on air mattresses. None of us wanted to leave, and I had even gone for a run to further delay our departure (side note: running in high altitude locales is not terribly pleasant if you are not used to the oxygen deprivation). As the sun started to set we finally said our goodbyes to Max (who was staying up there for the summer to work at his grandmother's restaurant) and piled into our cars.

I rode back with my friends A. and B. and their bulldog, Eleanor. A. drove slowly as she navigated the winding mountain roads and watched for elk, and the trees were a blue-black blur under the impossible banner of stars overhead. We listened to a mix that A. had made, and when "Forever Young" came on we did our best Napoleon Dynamite impressions, and then things got quiet for a little while. Eleanor had plopped her wrinkly head on my lap, and I remember feeling like it was an absolutely perfect moment. It was one of those moments that I will look back on when I'm old and decrepit and I can think about how I had weekends in the mountains with friends whom I loved, and how our lives felt like they stretched ahead of us as far as the eye could see, like mountain roads framed by stars.



I don't think any of us could possibly conceptualize how much our lives would change after that. We flocked to all corners of the globe, went through break-ups, changed careers, found true love, grew up. None of us could have possibly imagined that we would have to say goodbye to Max.

I remember his birthday three years ago. I had gone with Andrew to the Mexican supermarket, where I had to serve as translator as we purchased a pinata, princess decorations, balloons, and all of the ingredients for carne asada fajitas and homemade salsa and guacamole. We drank and drank and drank (K. had brought some rather potent to-kill-ya that was so smooth it was like drinking water) and gathered the candy from the broken pinata. Max was drinking beer out of his gigantic beer stein and fell on top of A. when he was showing us his Lord of the Dance moves.



(Alcohol and Lord of the Dance moves are not a good combination)

Our darling, darling Max. You are missed. I will be joining my Phoenix friends in drinking a memorial cocktail at 5 p.m. on Tuesday (though, um, I will be drinking mine twelve hours earlier than they will), and celebrating some incredible memories.