I can hear it like it was yesterday.

"WWWWHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! I'M GOING BAAAAAAAAACKWARDS!"

The scream pierced the dank silence of the hotel service corridor. A wheelchair loaded with the hefty body of a 17 year old boy careened backward down an inclined ramp. Three other boys raced after it to save him before slamming into the concrete wall at the bottom.

"Ah-ahhh! Let's do that again! That was cool!" The wheelchaired passenger screamed in joy to his friends.

The scene is a service corridor under the then Statler-Hilton in New York City. It was February 1977 at the Star Trek World Expo. The four teenage friends had traveled from Rhode Island to attend a major Trek convention, a first for some of them. One of them is wheelchair-bound. Their common interest in science fiction was one of the building blocks which had led to a decades long bond.

They have used the service corridors to make it easier to navigate the crowded hallways with their wheeled pal. Unseen to the public, the passageways snake around ballrooms, through kitchens and go from the top to the bottom of the hotel. The friends were making their way from the lobby up to the dealers' floor when they came to the ramp.

"Here, let me help, said one of the friends moving to push the chair to the top of the ramp.

"I can do it," said the strongly independent friend. "Strong" was an understatement. While the degenerative disease which put him in the chair had robbed him of lower body use he was a brick house from the waist up. All of the friends knew that you never wanted to be grabbed and held tightly by the wrist, or even worse, pulled into a bear hug. Asthma attacks had nothing in comparison to the breathing restriction inflicted by one of his "Playful" wrestling holds. And he laughed all the time doing it....the bastard!

From the beginning there was an understanding between these friends. Even though he was in the chair, he was just one of them. Sure, they helped when asked and made minor concessions to their friends limitations; but there weren't many. They went everywhere together. They did all the things teenage friends did together. This trip was a perfect example. They planned and saved for the trip for months. Never, in any of the planning, were the limitations of bringing someone in a wheelchair seen as a hindrance to going; it was simply part of the planning.

They may have asked about the disease at some point during the friendship, but it never mattered. They only wanted to answer their curiosity as to WHY their friend was in the chair. They spent hours together and never thought of him as anything other than just another one of the group.

Just as his chair crested the ramp his eyes widened as the realization hit that he was losing control. His arms began to flail as he grabbed at the wheels in a vain attempt to regain ground.

"Hey!" he called out to this friends steps in front of him.

"WWWWHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! I'M GOING BAAAAAAAAACKWARDS!"

That New York trip was one which I took with Andy Hastings, Bob Eggleton and Jay Kingston. Andy was the one in the wheelchair.

The was the instant image that flashed through my mind when I got the news that Andy had died on May 26th.

Then I cried.

The is the first death amongst my close circle of friends from my youth. This is the first real sorrowful loss I've felt since my mother's passing. Older relatives are one thing, but to have "one of us" die cuts in a different way. It means we are mortal.

I don't think I've talked to Andy in more than 20 years and that guilt weighs on me. There are so many people in my life I struggle with to hold on to against the battle of time and distance. I have rekindled friendships lost through the years and hold tight to the ones I can keep. I'm sure some would say that I live too much in the past; that I should take pleasure in what I have today. It's not that that isn't true. But why shouldn't I try my hardest to keep the joyous relationships I've had in the past as much a part of my life today as they were 20 years ago? "People come into our lives and they go out of our lives; it's a fact of life". I think that sucks. I have given in to that axiom a little easier in recent years but its never without a good fight.

I have thought of that weekend over and over since getting the news. And I smile. I even will laugh out loud when I think of Jay's dead-on impression of Andy as he sped backwards. I don't know how I'm really going to cope with this. I am wearing my Trek mourning badge in his honor. I am sending his parents a copy of this post because a Hallmark card didn't seem like enough. I will hold tighter to the friends I have and maybe not give up as easily as I have been to the affect the march of time has on friendships.

I called Bob immediately the other night and we talked like we always have. It might have been a year since we spoke last but it felt as if we had only hung up the phone yesterday. We talked about our lives and our circle of friends who knew Andy. I realized I didn't have the same ease with some of the others from that group.

Oh, shit....

Excuse me while I go call Jay.