Brad - Part I

Billy Joel said only the good die young. It makes for a good song but is far from true. It does, seem, however, that so many who die young are truly good.

So it is with my friend, Brad. Brad died at about 8:30 Sunday morning on an operating table at the Summit County hospital.

Brad was a 12-year photographer at the Summit Daily News. He started there a month before I did and we worked together for 9 years. We were friends from the start and still in regular contact with one another until the day he died. He was 42.

Brad had hosted a dinner party that evening, as he did so often and so well.

I had traveled to Summit County that day to douse my Denver loneliness with the company of old friends. "Come by," Brad said. "Shauna's here. She'd love to see you." But somehow, we crossed wires. Perhaps it was a phone call one of us thought the other had promised to make. I never made it there.

As usual, he had invited two of his guests, including Shauna, also a former SDN reporter, to spend the night in his four-bedroom home. Brad loved company but also did not want anyone who might be drunk to drive home after one of his parties. He promised he'd be right up the stairs after them, but instead opted to sit in the ground-level hot tub, three stories below his condo. At about midnight, he walked back up the stairs. Authorities believe it was the combination of alcohol, an extremely hot hot tub and the exertion of climbing three floors that made him dizzy. But somehow, standing at the landing outside his door, he somehow flipped over the thigh-high railing and fell to the grass three stories down.

He broke tree branches on the way down.

Shauna says she heard a thump about midnight. The kind of sound that gave her "a bad feeling." But her friend convinced her it was nothing, and so, she fell asleep again. Shauna, always a keenly sensitive woman, cannot forgive herself.

The authorities say he never regained full consciousness. While I'd like to believe this is true, I cannot. He tried to pull himself back up the three flights of stairs, but got no further than the second landing. Friends who went to the scene said there was blood and an indentation in the grass where he landed, more blood leading up the stairs.

A neighbor heard moaning outside his door. He ignored it for a while, believing someone was having sex outside. Finally, he called out and asked if everything was alright.

"Fell," Brad said.

"Where are you?"

"Staircase."

Two hours had passed by then.

Brad answered paramedics' questions, but apparently did not know his name.

At 2:30 a.m., he arrived at the hospital. He had sustained massive pelvic trauma and a head injury. He was too critical to fly to Denver.

Shauna, pacing the waiting room, said she looked in and thought, "Why are Brad's feet black?"

At 8:30 a.m., they pronounced him dead.

At 9:30, perplexed about our missed connection of the night before, I called Brad, hoping we could meet for coffee before I left town.

The voice that answered was unfamiliar.

"You're looking for Brad? Are you one of his friends?"

He stumbled as he went on. "This is Jim Morgan. I'm publisher of the Summit Daily News. I have Brad's phone because he was in an accident last night."

I felt the blood drain from my face. I waited for him to tell me what hospital he was in.

"He passed away." He was silent, waiting for me to say something, but I could not speak.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know how else to tell you."

Later, I would realize what a horrible job he had that day, but then I could only think, "You're a liar."

No one that young is supposed to die. But Brad, in particular, was not supposed to die. Brad was adventurous, an admirable athlete, a world traveler, a great cook with an appreciation for fine wine and good beer. He celebrated life. He drank. But he was never reckless.

No drunken Brad tales ever circulated Summit County. (I'm quite sure the same cannot be said of me.)

He was the very definition of mellow, speaking so slowly at times that the rest of us on staff made affectionate fun of him. We could all imitate one another with some success, but "the Brad" was distinctive, more easily done than some. He spoke slowly, in part, because he was so thoughtful, his words so carefully considered.

In a ski resort community populated by risk-takers and outdoor lovers, I can think of at least a dozen other friends whose premature deaths would have saddened, but not surprised me.

Not Brad. As one friend wrote in an e-mail today, "There was always going to be another time to see Brad."

You knew that because Brad always was and always would be a friend. His door would always swing wide for you.

But my friend Laura, with whom I was staying, called the coroner. We both knew her; this is a small county in which the locals - always outnumbered by the tourists who play there year-round - keep a tight circle. She confirmed that it was true. She - like everyone else - knew Brad.

"She was shaken," Laura said. "I've never heard her like that before."

The phone lines and cell signals began to burn. The calls crossed the county, the state, the country and oceans.

I called my former editor Alex, thinking he must already know. He did not. Alex called Mark, who for years had worked with Brad as co-SDN photographers and considered Brad his brother. Mark had just told Gay and John. Alex called the editor. I called Abby in Aspen, who had just heard from Mark and said she was driving over. But first, she would go to the Aspen Times office to tell Dan, who jumped in his car as well. I called Andy in Denver, who jumped in his car and headed for the mountains. I called Lu, who told me I was a liar. Lu called Martha. Martha stopped Christy, who had planned to have dinner with Brad that night, as she rode down the bike path. I met my ever-smiling friend Dave for a late coffee, as planned, and for once, the smile fell from his face. He dropped his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes. Someone called a river rafting office in central Colorado. They pulled Reid, this summer a rafting guide but a years-long reporter and fellow photographer, off the river to tell him. He headed toward Summit County.

Where we were all going was not clear. But we were headed for what had all been home to us once, where we had all met Brad. We were also headed, I think, for one another.

Later, word spread that Mark was hosting a gathering at his cabin that evening. About 20 of us current and former staff members congregated there. People from "generations" of the Summit Daily News, some of whom had never worked together. We all knew one another by name, however, mostly through Brad.

Because of Brad, we were all family. The Summit Daily is a small mountain resort newspaper with a daily press count of about 10,000 papers. It circulates much further because of its resort location. It is 17 years old, which made Brad, me and a few others of us among the longest-standing of its employees. It was an upstart that took out a well-established community paper, so the bond among the staff was tight from the beginning. For years, I tried to get a foot in the door there.

And for those 9 years following, no matter how much I came to dislike the long winters, high cost of living and other things about the county, I never lost my love of the job or the Summit Daily.

Every day that I worked at the Gazette, I carried my Summit Daily mug with me, a shield against the negative emotions that permeated that newsroom. Perhaps even more so because of that experience, as well as the loneliness of my new city, I felt Sunday the depth of the bond that glued all 17 years of us together. Brad was the constant among us, the friend to us all. Even those he didn't particularly like thought he was their friend.

Friends come and friends go, but Brad would never fall away. This I knew. As did so many others. The letters and comments posted since his death tell the story: "Brad kept in touch with me years after I left the Daily." "Brad called me just the other day." "Brad remembered my birthday when no one else did."

For a while Sunday night, we all mingled in loose knots of three or four people. Then John, one of the paper's original staff members, called for us to form a circle around the campfire. "Since we're here for Brad, I think we should go around and tell some stories about Brad."

Most of us, we discovered, had spent a moment that day searching for the beauty Brad captured through his photographer's lens, the loveliness he found in the most ordinary of things. I had driven by his house and seen a smattering of wildly colored flowers. Brad would have taken a picture of that, I thought. In fact, he probably already had. Alex took a bike ride with his wife and son after he heard the news. He looked at everything around him with new appreciation. Others said they'd done the same. All of us, trying to see the world through Brad's eyes.

Someone brought up the old-school equipment he used to heli, tele and Alpine ski. Others recalled golfing, camping and long-distance hiking with him. Lacking the outdoor adventurer's spirit, these were entire areas of his life I never knew.

Someone else mentioned women and the entire group burst into laughter. Brad had always wanted to marry and have children, but somehow, he had yet to find the right woman. He dated, and dated a lot. Young, old, locals, tourists, friends past and present - but never co-workers. But despite Brad's reputation as a ladies' man, we all knew that Brad genuinely loved women. He did not use a single one. He respected them all. He liked them all, which was why so many stayed his friend after the relationships ended.

He also photographed them, often without attire. "Damn, there have got to be some nervous women out there wondering what's gonna happen to those negatives," Reid said.

We lapsed into silence. I looked around the circle, at all the lovely faces of friends past and present. Their expressions were caught in the glow from the flames. Some were smiling. Some wiped away tears. Others stared without expression into the fire. It was a moment of sad but extraordinary beauty, I thought, that needed to be photographed.

"Son of a bitch could cook!" John said. Again, a round of laughter.

"Did you ever taste his curry?" someone asked.

"God, that was hot stuff. He said he made it mild but no way was that mild," Christy said.

Everyone began throwing out the names of their favorite Brad dishes.

Someone circulated a bottle of scotch. Someone else passed a pipe. Silence fell again. Someone sniffled. Someone else sobbed as quietly as they possibly could.

I told the story of the Christmas Eve before last, when my friend April and I - both childless and uncertain what to do with our holiday - had come to Summit County and spent the evening at Brad's house. He cooked us an exotic dinner, on this night some kind of English stew with the bones still in it. We talked late into the night, Brad sprawled across the ledge along his fireplace.

"April's thong was showing," I said, inducing a round of laughter. Everyone knew almost exactly how the tale would go.

"Brad was in heaven," Reid said.

Brad had harassed April lightly throughout the evening. "I'd sure like to see the rest of that thong, April," he'd said. April was not interested, but Brad, accustomed to the power of his charms, believed she was. The next day, he'd called me and said, "Janie, I just didn't want to send you home along. But you tell April she and that thong are welcome here anytime." He had e-mailed me about it for months.

Brad kept in touch with old friends like no one I've ever known. He'd called me twice in the previous 10 days to tell me small news snippets he thought I'd like to know: that the former mayor of Dillon had died, and a few days later that a mutual friend had lung cancer. I joked lightly with him after the second sad pronouncement. "Next time you call, it had better be with some good news."

"I know, Janie," he said. "It's crazy lately, isn't it?"

During our years as co-workers, we took many long road trips on assignments. We talked about everything. Nothing was forbidden. Never did I feel I should hide anything from Brad. He listened in silence when I told him about my nervous breakdown, reassuring me I was solid as a rock and all the better for it. He offered advice on men, always encouraging me to date more, to relax, to not take it all so seriously. Yet, he was fiercely protective of me. With the exception of Iain, Brad found the men I dated lacking. "Janie, I just don't think he's good enough for you," he'd repeatedly conclude.

Brad had always planned to release a photography book of naked pregnant women, and during my pregnancy, he begged me repeatedly to allow him to take my picture. I would have trusted Brad without question to take the picture, and to be gentlemanly about it. I knew the images would be beautiful and tasteful. But I could not bring myself to do it; it was my own insecurities, not my insecurity about Brad.

"Brad," I'd joked. "It's not that I wouldn't do it. It's just I'd have to be drunk to do it, and I can't do that when I'm pregnant."

Brad was enamored with Robby, carrying him around the newsroom on his hip when he was not yet a toddler. Almost all the framed photographs I have of Robby as a baby and young child were taken by Brad. He is everywhere in my home; sadly, he is always behind the lens. Today, I found exactly two pictures of Brad (both with women). Such a tiny representation for a man who played such a large part in my life.

The last time I saw him, about six months ago, he'd organized a reunion for me at his home. Mark came from Aspen, Reid, Shauna and several others from Vail and Summit. I felt privileged, as always, to be invited to Brad's home, even more so that he had gathered a group for me. We ate something exotic, perhaps it was even curry, drank good wine, reminisced and talked late into the evening.

He hugged me at his door when the night ended. "We miss you here, Janie," he said. "I miss you."

I miss you, too, Bradford.

E-mails are flying like crazy these last few days, from people I haven't heard from in years, from some I've even forgotten. All say the same thing: Not Brad. He was my friend.

My friends express to me the way I feel: Guilt that we are looking forward to seeing one another.

We are reconnecting in the saddest of ways, though I can't help but think Brad would approve of the people he's bringing back together, the friendships he is likely renewing.

The services are Saturday. I can only imagine how massive the turnout will be.

I can't help but think, too, that if there is such a thing as heaven, Brad is witnessing our sorrow. If that were true, I know he was there last night with me in the kitchen. I could almost hear his mellow voice, saying, "Don't cry, Janie."