Short Follow-Up on a Fallen Friend

Coda to a Loss (with Nod to the Detroit Lions)

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” —from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”¹

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“There is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
and

we will wait
and
wait

in that space.”
― Charles Bukowski

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Of course, it took about six weeks to confirm where you passed away, not as a John Doe in Denver, but peacefully alone in an Indianapolis hospital. In those last couple of years, you played a seemingly harmless jest of continual hide-and-seek, one all too common with old guys living solo.

A week into the New Year, your sister released a sadly courageous notice of you and a cause of death illness you once admitted as having “started in ninth grade.” Her heartwarming focus mentioned many moments and people who treasured your magnetic grin, subtle charm, unassuming intellect and uniquely wry humor, at work, play, school and yes, athletic fields across the universe.

You leave behind quite a milky way of emotional belongings, with a digital shadow of both mugging to the camera and solitary views of nature, mostly in the woods and mountains of Colorado, one of the semi-secret hideaways in your life after Michigan. Most of the shots, captioned with abstruse asides, also reveal your ever goofy attempt at a running comedy routine.

In 1995, George Puscas, a sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press, published a short “Love Letter” documenting a crazy, time-capsule wager Jeff and Bill made 20 years earlier, in Derby Junior High. Bill insisted the San Diego Chargers would make it to the Super Bowl before the Detroit Lions.

We chuckled over my belatedly victorious bet, with the Chargers making it that year (losing in the Super Bowl), both figuring it would be another decade before the Lions would win even a playoff game.

Now sir, as we later suspected, it would actually take three more decades for a playoff victory with this once perpetually sad sack organization. Yet finally, here we are, childhood dreams unexpectedly materializing, preparing at last for an NFC Championship party (close enough to the Super Bowl?), only slightly restrained, now in your memory.

Your Detroit friends would have urged you to return for this astoundingly rare occasion, to find a shared viewing room where the volume would not drown out our catch-up conversation. We could name at least a dozen more who would have loved to join us, joking about our aging ugliness, sharing more screwball stories — had they still been around, including your brother, and our fathers.

Brazingly, it’s time to toast you, your first Little League football team, coincidentally the Lions (my JV team, the Rams, did beat you guys, remember?), this unusual Motor City and this quite tardy Championship Game, with a frosted mug of root beer, a raised hand and a Let’s Go Lions refrain.

In the end, it truly does not matter who wins, or what contest we view. Jeffery Scott Harris, you depart with one more simple life lesson on the Final Exam: a resilient reminder how the ultimate champions are the friends you keep.

Missing you more than ever.

Salud.

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One of many Colorado winter photos taken by Jeff. Here at CSU.

One of my favorite photos of a friend. Photographer unknown. In 2009, Jeff declared he grew a “hunting beard” without the hunting, in a loving gesture to his two special daughters. As usual, we loved the smile even if we didn’t quite get the joke.

While a lifelong baseball fan, Jeff found Colorado blizzards in April truly amusing. I conclude with one such photo from his extensive album, with traffic lights flashing green in the snowy distance.

1. Special thanks to Lynne Stefanowski for generous assistance with this essay.