In Memory of Ryan Erikson
One of my oldest friends, Greg, called on a Friday morning. Ryan had left all of us too soon.
I've been friends with Ryan since the wild days of college until the milder nights that mirror near middle age. During that time, we never spoke on the what-ifs regarding the uncompleted business of life. Again, it was all too soon, who were we to imagine this awfulness?
But we remember the good times, the backpacking trips into the Nevada and Utah wilderness with Greg and Mark and up into the Colorado mountains. Jamming to the Allman Brothers Band on a Savannah run with Jeff, Josh, Ryan, and Katie armed only with bottles of whiskey, cigarettes, and the swagger of bulletproof youth. The two nights of Phish at Wrigley was something that will be hard to forget. Then the weddings of close friends in No Name, Colorado to Bethlehem, PA, and my wedding up Coal Creek Canyon.
Everyone understood that these were the days; they could only get better from here, funneling into bars and pouring back out into the future. There were no boundaries, traveling light and fast through life; the only way any of us knew how.
Fishing in the rain by a small unnamed pond feed by Smith Creek. The fish weren’t biting, they never did but that’s never the point.
“I wish I was a headlight on a north-bound train
I wish I was a headlight on a north-bound train
I’d shine my light through the cool Colorado rain”
One fall, we lived the above lyrics in Colorado's Flat Tops Wilderness, huddled around a sputtering campfire, tossing pebbles at empty Coors cans and fishing in the rain. We joked that after two days of camping in it, we'd never want to be a headlight on a north-bound train, especially not one shining its light through the cool Colorado rain. On the third day, the skies cleared, like they were welcoming back the Dead to help keep all those troubles away, so we kept moving, restless to experience the universe.
My last text, sent Nov 5, 2019, at 9:57 AM, sits unanswered and reads, "Hey buddy just saying hi. Thinking about you."
Friendship is a beautiful gift that all us buddies assumed we'd spend the rest of our lives unwrapping together. It's human nature to wonder why this happens; confusion bound by grief seeks that eternal, unknowable truth. The only terrestrial answer is to keep the stories alive, memories fresh, and photographs handy.
Ryan Erikson, son, brother, uncle, and a friend to countless, you will be missed and remembered.
June 24, 1979 — Nov 8, 2019
Spread the word.
Same pond, still no fish.
On the ridge line that makes up the harrowing hike of the Devil’s Causeway. Flat Tops Wilderness.
The view from the Devil’s Causeway stretches eternal.
Ryan said, “Hey, take this one for Greg.”
There’s a storm rolling in.
Oh yeah, that’s probably bad. It was pretty bad.
Open wings cast this valley in the shade.
Rest easy brother.
Share your own memories of Ryan. They will be collected and shared with the family at a later date.
