So there was this guy.

A shy, kind artist who worked in metal, lived by the ocean, had tons of friends, and also did an awesome job detailing cars. One day he drove four hours from his home to Ft. Bragg to deliver an enormous hanging sculpture-thingy to my best friend Virginia, who lived in my former hometown of Davis. Apparently she had out-bid the town of Mendocino for the piece.

I was visiting for a few days, and was still in my P.J.s when Chris showed up. His sculpture-thingy, with its hundreds of keys, spoons, bolts, and various brass whosits all carefully tied and hung from a gigantic metal circle, had become tangled during the last mile of his journey, when he almost overshot a stop sign and suddenly braked. Chris hauled the circle in the door, and I offered to help. We sat on Virginia’s tile floor and together carefully teased the strands apart.

We were married. Separated. One day I got the call. That call.

He was 54. Heart attack on a remote hillside. He didn’t get help in time.

I stored his artwork, set up a Christopher Stuart Lloyd website for him, became a volunteer ambulance driver. Actions to assuage regret, to try to make up for that which can never be made up.

Ah, we humans. We think we have more chances. We think we can put off for tomorrow the hug we could have given yesterday.