For Brad Stitt

Five years ago today, my best friend Brad Stitt passed away. It was quite shocking to realize that it's been that long when I can still recall his goofy laugh like it was just yesterday that I heard it for real.

One of my favorite films of all time is the classic '80s coming-of-age tale, Stand by Me. It's a film that took on a much deeper meaning to me after losing my friend. There's a line where the narrator, the grown-up version of the film's main character Gordie, types this sentence: “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” That line rings remarkably true for me, and looking back, the similarities between my friendship with Brad to that of Gordie and Chris Chambers in the film is remarkable.

One of the many nights in high school at a friend's house.

Brad moved into a house two doors down from me when I was 11 or 12. I had moved to Danville just two years earlier – an upper-middle class suburb in the East Bay – and I felt extreme culture shock moving there from the less nice Hayward. It wasn't until I met Brad that I felt I had finally met someone who truly understood and accepted me for who I was.

Brad had the compassion and eagerness to make anyone he met feel comfortable. When he'd come over my house, he'd have meaningful interactions with my parents and my little sister before we'd eventually wind up outside. I spent nearly every summer for years with this kid, either at his house or somewhere around the neighborhood causing minor mischief.

When we got to high school, it was because of Brad that I ever felt like I truly fit in. While I was grounded a lot of the time for slacking off in school, Brad would occasionally have small get-togethers at his house when his parents went out of town. When my parents went upstairs for the night, I'd usually sneak over there to find that all the alcohol had been consumed and I'd end up taxed with babysitting our drunk friends. Those are some of the fondest memories I have from those years and laid the groundwork for many of the friendships that are still really important to me today.

Then it came time for college, a time when distance can cause even the best of friends to drift apart. Though Brad went into the service and I went to a small college in East Texas, we didn't lose touch. I'd hear from him every once in awhile and we'd catch up and reminisce on old times. When we both wound up back home, it was like nothing had changed. Like with any strong friendship, there were moments in time where we had our issues. I shared an apartment with Brad for a short time during both of our most tumultuous points in our lives – and though we had a brief falling out, it ended up only strengthening our friendship.

I feel like there was a misconception about Brad that he wasn't a bright kid. On the contrary, he was one of the most intelligent people I knew. Many of the deepest and most profound conversations I've ever had in my life were had in his garage. Brad was always interested in finding out how things and people worked. He knew how to connect with people in a way that others can't, and to me that's worth a skyscraper's weight in gold. 

Brad used to ALWAYS play the piano in his house, usually 45
seconds from the same song that I forget the name of.

Though I had dropped out of college and felt my future was looking a bit bleak, Brad was always there to convince me to continue following my dreams. When I got my foot in the door writing about sports, many early memories of that involved Brad driving us to fights near Sacramento, in the Bay Area, and even to Reno (because I didn't have a car nor a license). Even though this was just a hobby at the time and by no means looked promising as a future career, very early on Brad was one of the few who believed in me. Everything I've managed to achieve since then I've done with Brad in my heart. Though there are times that my successes have felt slightly empty without the ability to share them with him physically, I do feel as though he's here with me enjoying the ride in a spiritual way.

One of Brad's biggest strengths was his enormous heart. He was always quick to forgive those who had wronged him, even if they sometimes didn't deserve it. He saw the absolute best in people and just wanted to be friends with everyone. There was also the flipside – when he felt like he had wronged someone close to him, he had a hard time forgiving himself – even when you'd told him it was water under the bridge. I feel like that aspect had a lot to do with some of the personal struggles he had later on in life but I know he's found peace with that.

Though much time has come and gone since I've last seen him in the flesh, there have been many times in my life where I've felt his presence in a strong way. A few weeks ago, I went to the wedding for a mutual friend of ours growing up. It was there I was reunited with a number of people who I had spent a lot of time with in high school – and with whom time and distance has caused us to grow distant. Very quickly, Brad's name came up and how we wished he could have been there to share in it with us. We toasted beers in his memory at the bar. Forever, Brad will be my connection to a million people.

At a fight in San Jose.

Just this week I went to this thing in LA called “Emo Night,” where a DJ spins emo songs from our heyday and people our age passionately sing along to them like it's 1999 (moreso 2003). For me, many of them weren't even songs, but instead snapshots of specific memories, a large portion of which were made with Brad.

Speaking at Brad's service was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do. I arrived with bags under my eyes, spending the entire night before trying to put in words what his friendship had meant to me and how sad I wasn't going to see him again. I'll never forget being uplifted yet not surprised that there weren't enough seats for everyone who showed up, whose lives Brad had touched in some way, big or small. It is that image that has stuck with me and made it easier to put together this tribute to him years later.

Years after Brad's passing, I came across a book by Gail Caldwell called Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship.

“I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures.”

Though I lost my best friend, I've tried my best to absorb the compassion and love he had for all people and act in a way that would make him proud. For that and much more, I will always love this guy and he'll always be my best friend, until I catch up with him some day.

Some random memories of Brad:

- His dog Tucker and how sometimes when he'd open his front door when you knocked, Tucker would run and he would have to chase him all over the neighborhood. Those two had such a love for each other.

- Umpiring Little League baseball games with him, particularly this one time.There are times where you're in a bad position to make a call and you point to the other umpire for help. Brad was behind the plate and I was the first base ump.. There was a play at the plate. Brad for some reason pointed to me to make the call. I didn't see shit and I called the kid out. The other team's manager went bonkers on me and from over his shoulder I could see Brad laughing his ass off at me.

A Photoshop job Brad did.

- Brad had an interest in standup comedy, reading books about it and just absorbing a ton on the craft. It was because of him that I ever got the courage to do an open mic and I'm forever grateful he was there to see it, along with many of our other friends.

- He had been given a snake by my brother. At one of the many house parties he had, I came over to find him and a bunch of other people cheering as a mouse went through an obstacle course that ran from the upstairs all the way into the downstairs den, the mouse leading himself to his own demise.

- Of taking road trips in his car from our place in Roseville (near Sacramento), whether it was back to the Bay or to a boxing match in Reno. He always let me control the music and we'd sing along all the way to our destination.

- Brad had a CD burner before I ever had one so I would sometimes make CDs on his computer. I'll never forget him giving me a lot of shit for putting Sheryl Crow's "Soak Up the Sun" on a mix. When it started playing on his computer, he almost cried from laughter.

I made a random playlist of songs that always make me think of Brad. Most of them were the jams we'd sing loudly to while road tripping, others are just songs that make me think of him for whatever reason. Feel free to add any songs to the playlist that make you think of Brad.