He only had one KS lesion on his face, thank God, but the rest of his body was pretty well covered. The radiation reduced the lesion on his feet that had caused him so much pain. At least, that allowed him to walk onto the ship under his own power. Since this was 1989, the ultimate outcome was pretty clear.
I was asleep when he died. He lived in NY; I lived in Philadelphia. His father called me at 5:00 AM with the news. I was not awake even though I answered the phone, and I had to be told twice that he had died.
We started dating three years before. That first November, Stewart came down with a cold that turned into pneumonia and then was diagnosed with AIDS. The same week as his diagnosis, the doctors told my mother there was no hope for her lung cancer. That week also happened to be Thanksgiving week. And it turns out that I am a Thanksgiving baby. I didn't celebrate my birthday for several years thereafter.
After he had recovered from pneumocystis, Stewart and I went on a trip to Whistler, 2 hours north of Vancouver. In 2010, the Winter Olympics will be coming to Whistler. Then it was much less well known, but still an incredible ski resort.
What shall I say? We were noticed. Me, the shy, white geek and Stewart the gregarious, black man. Stewart spoke with a perfect British accent, better than the Queen's, even though he grew up in Queens. Working for British Airways for a time, Stewart affected a British accent and never let it go. He never let someone by without making them laugh, one way or another. By the end of our trip, all the lifties at Whistler were calling out "Hey Stewart" as we got on the chairlifts.
In the picture below, Stewart is upside down on the right; I'm holding his legs.
After he died in January, his parents had a memorial service. Prayers were said over the metal urn containing his ashes. At the end of the service, his parents amazed me by asking if I would scatter his ashes for them. Stewart loved to ski; no one else in his family knew how to ski, and they wanted his ashes scattered at the ski resort in upstate New York where he learned how to ski.
Soon after, on a cold winter weekend, his parents and I drove to the mountain. How do you scatter ashes unnoticed on a crowded ski hill that is covered with white snow? I had bought a red backpack to carry his ashes up the chairlift. Since I had never skied there before, I did not quite know where to scatter the ashes, but I managed to ski to a beautiful spot with a view under a cliff. Waiting for a moment when no one was around was excruciating, and at best I would have just a few moments. Finally the time was at hand. As rapidly as possible, I scattered his ashes beneath the cliff.
Unfortunately, there sure were more ashes than I expected. In my haste, I am embarassed to say, some ashes were "left over" both in the tin and in the red backpack. By then, however, the crowds had returned, and I had no ability to do anything but ski down, with my face wet, and not from falling snow.
What to do with Stewart's remaining ashes? In time, a solution came to mind. I was going to be in Vancouver for a conference the first week in May. I could take the two-hour bus ride to Whistler and scatter his remaining ashes there, on our favorite trail. I could think of no more fitting place.
The road up to Whistler, the Sea-to-Sky highway is engraved into the side of steep mountains rising up from shore of a fjord extending to the town of Squamish. Squamish is a former mining and logging town. These days it is becoming a bedroom community for Whistler, which has the priciest real estate in all of Canada. At that time, Squamish was a dingy town nestled in spectacular scenery. From Squamish, the highway rises over 2000 vertical feet to Whistler. The views from the road can be both breathtaking and vertigo inducing, but my thoughts were only about Stewart on the ride up.
It was the last weekend of skiing that year at Whistler. The weather was clear and warm. The snow had melted from the lower slopes, but luckily our favorite slope, starting at 8000' still had plenty of snow. I had the red backpack, and the tin of his few remaining ashes. Since it was the end of the season, there were very few skiers. The ride up was long, first the gondola then the peak chair to the very top of the mountain, then a quick traverse to the start of our trail. Dammit if there wasn't someone sunbathing right there, given the warm weather, but I was able to move behind a rock, say my piece, and quietly scatter all the rest of his ashes. My face was again wet, despite the sun.
I don't know how I skied down, but I managed, and got back on the bus for the ride back to Vancouver.
Then, on the bus, I swear, I heard Stewart's voice.
He was laughing.
Uproariously.
"Christopher, how could you?", he scolded, in his best British accent.
I didn't understand. What did I do?
"Christopher, how could you?", laughing louder, he repeated.
And then it hit me. From deep inside, laughter erupted and would have splattered all over the bus if it had physical form. I had planned this trip for months. It was meant to be a tribute to his memory. But even with all that careful planning, I hadn't realized.
The name of our favorite trail at Whistler was, and is, "Burnt Stew Basin".
Knowing Stewart, I can think of no better tribute.
Posts
