A more serious note
I got a call this morning from a Montana phone number that my cell phone didn’t recognize. I was working and let it go to voice mail. About an hour ago I remembered getting the call and listened to the voice mail.
It was a message from a guy I went to Willamette with, Ward Hiesterman, who went on the year abroad in Munich with me and was a roommate for part of our senior year (along with James Hadley).
Ward called to tell me that a friend of ours from the Munich trip, Van Kellems, was killed in a motorcycle accident the weekend before last.
I hadn’t talked to Van in years (and Ward since graduation, probably — in fact, I’m at a loss as to how he found my number). It turns out Van and Sarah got married and they have a son, Angus. They still live on the land they bought somewhere outside of White Salmon.
It’s strange, how much impact this news has had on me. Van was a guy who lived life to the utmost. All the details that I’ve learned about him since hearing the news — that his boy is named Angus, that he was riding a 1973 BMW motorcycle, and even the fact that he was killed in a motorcycle crash — are so fitting with the character of the person I remember. And he was a character in every way.
So it seems to have an impact beyond my closeness to this person, to find out that he died. He lived life large. And so losing him — even though I didn’t know him so well in the last ten years — feels like a big deal.
I believe tonight I will listen to Stan Rogers and John Prine too loud and down a few for Van Kellems, who will be missed. Rest in peace, brother.
