Star Stuff

When I think about Will, the first thing that comes to mind is his laugh. It was silly, it was sincere, and it was a fixture in my life growing up.

But when I think back more broadly to Will’s role in my life, I can’t help but be grateful. Grateful to Will for his kindness and friendship, and the way he actively helped shape who I am and the people I share my life with.

There’s also another part of that gratitude that is harder to describe. It’s a gratitude for all of the improbable things that had to happen for Will and I – and all of us here – to share this life together.

So today, I’d like to share a little bit about Will and all those things I’m grateful for.

* * * * *

I grew up with Will in Devola, which is a small community outside of Marietta, which itself is a small town in southeast Ohio. His house was a block over from mine, and in between our houses, there was another family that had a daughter my age named Julie.

Initially, our three lives interacted but weren’t intertwined. We all went to the same elementary school – Putnam. But Will was a year younger than us, so he was a grade behind. And although Julie and I had some mutual friends, we didn’t really know each other directly. (I was terrified of girls at that age, so we wouldn’t have interacted much anyway….)

But by the fifth grade, the trajectories of our lives had shifted. Julie’s family had moved to Cleveland, and Will had skipped a year in school – so we were in the same grade at that point and getting to know each other more.

One of my first memories of Will is from a geography contest in elementary school. Each grade was split into two classes, and each class would have a competition. Then, the winners of each class would face off against each other. So we do the first round, and I win in my class. And then the teacher takes me across the hall to the other class, and I look around to see who won in the other class that I’m going to be facing. And I realize it’s the little genius who skipped a grade. (Never a good situation to be in…) So of course Will won. But he was very unassuming and kind in his victory, as you would expect Will to be.

* * * * *

And in a sense, that experience kick-started our friendship. As we continued on through middle school and high school, our paths grew more tightly connected. And we grew into a small but close group of friends – Will and I, Josh, Scott, Jenn, and James, who are all here today.

All through those years, we were inseparable. It was a bit like a Spielberg movie – no aliens, but we were all good, smart kids. All guys except for the one girl who could stand us…

We didn’t really get into any trouble – our idea of a crazy night was drinking a bunch of Mountain Dew and staying up all night playing video games in one of our basements.

Once we could drive, we would go to blockbuster video on the weekend and browse the horror section. And we’d pick out what looked like the worst possible movie based on the box and tagline. (We learned it’s the worst movies that have the best taglines…) And we’d have our own little version of MST3K laughing at these horrible movies, before we found out someone was already making a show doing exactly that.

In the summers, we would all take over the college computer lab and play video games together on a network – which was light years ahead of the dial-up modems we had to use in our houses at the time. The other students in the lab would be quietly working away, doing their schoolwork. We’d be furiously banging on the keyboards and chugging our Mountain Dew, and swearing at each other every time someone died in the game. And there was the classic “stern librarian” who did not appreciate our antics, and she would give progressively sterner warnings as the summer would go on. But by today’s standards, it was all pretty wholesome.

Another summer, we took a trip up to Cedar Point, and I witnessed Will in the single greatest feat of self-control I’ve ever seen. We were riding on the Raptor, which is a ride where you are sitting in a hanging chair, and it twists and flips upside down over and over. So as the ride is coming to the end, the track smooths out and you slow down, and I look over to my left and see Will in a cold sweat, face frozen. It’s clear he’s feeling sick, but doesn’t want to vomit on himself, because we’re still strapped in the chair. So I watch him as he throws up into his mouth, and then slowly chokes it back down. The whole time he’s just staring straight ahead – completely focused on not vomiting on himself. After he finishes, he just sits there frozen – still staring straight ahead – while we’re waiting for the ride to officially end. Eventually, the ride pulls up slowly to the end and the chair opens, and Will makes a beeline for the nearest trash can and throws it all up again. (But he didn’t get any on himself.)

One thing I didn’t get to share with Will was band. All the other friends in our group were in band together, and that was a big part of their time in school and over the summer. Although I didn’t get to go to band camp with him, I know those experiences were special to Will.

Those were really the formative years for me, growing up alongside Will and my friends. That’s the time when you are figuring out who you are as a person, and laying the foundation for who you will become.

* * * * *

During that time, our group had most of our classes together. Will obviously did well in all his classes, but his enthusiasm for science – and especially physics – was contagious. So much so, that I actually started college as a physics major like him. Eventually, I drifted over to the humanities, but I retained that interest in physics, even if I couldn’t follow all the details any more.

A few years ago, Will posted on FB about a physics book called “Our Mathematical Universe” and said it had some interesting ideas about the nature of reality and parallel universes. So I read it and we chatted about it at the time. And I’ve been thinking about that book again lately, because some parts of it emphasize just how improbable it is that Will came to be a part of my life.

I’m not qualified to get into the details about the physics in the book (particularly if any of Will’s co-workers are here today…), but it seems appropriate to talk about science a little today, so I’ll do my best.

One of the key ideas in the book is that our universe appears to be “fine-tuned” for life. By that, the author means there are many fundamental characteristics of our universe that, if you were to change them by even a small amount, the universe as we know it could not exist.

One example the author gives relates to the balance between dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter pulls matter together. Dark energy pushes it apart. In order for galaxies to form, there has to be just the right balance between those two. If dark energy density is too low, the universe would have collapsed on itself before there was enough time to create galaxies. And if dark energy density is too high, then the universe would have expanded and thinned out too quickly before galaxies could form. There is little margin for error in that balance. By the author’s calculation, if the dark energy density varied from what we have observed by even 120 decimal places, galaxies would not have been able to form.

The author gives several other examples of this “fine tuning” for fundamental values that have been observed – the electromagnetic force, the weak nuclear force, the mass of electrons and protons. If any of these values were different than what we have measured by even small amounts, the basic structures of our universe from stars to atoms would not exist.

And there’s even more improbability to this picture of how we came to be where we are today. These precise conditions just allow for the possibility of life as we know it. On top of that, there is still the improbability of all the events that have to occur throughout history to lead to our specific lives and experiences – and to ultimately create the person we know as “Will” and bring him into our lives.

Just for Will and I to connect in grade school, there had to be billions of years of evolution to create humans; thousands of generations of humans to lead to our parents, his family had to pack up and leave their home in Canton and move a block away so we would be in the same school, and then he’d have to be so smart he’d skip a grade so that we’d end up in a geography contest together. At any point, even a small change in events would likely mean there would be no “Will” and no “us.”

Now, in the physics book, the author suggests there are three possible ways to look at all that improbability. 1. It’s just pure luck. It happened, and it just happened to happen the way it happened. 2. By design – which could be religious, or some other form of intelligence we don’t yet understand that created the exact conditions for life. 3. That every possible variation of history and reality is happening, and we’re only aware of the specific variation in which we exist. (This is sort of the Marvel “multiverse” theory on steroids.)

I certainly don’t know which of those is the “right” answer. But it seems like whatever the answer is, we have to be equally grateful for whatever caused all of those conditions to align so that Will could come into our lives.

* * * * *

At the same time, it’s not enough to just attribute everything to chance or some outside design. There are also active forces shaping our lives. People who don’t just take life as it comes, but get involved and care for each other. Will was one of those people. He was deliberate in trying to bring more happiness to his friends’ lives. For me, that happened not only through our circle of friends, but also with my wife.

So to rewind a bit – I mentioned that growing up there was that other family who lived between our houses with the daughter named Julie who moved away to Cleveland. During college, our group of high school friends would get back together over the summer. And by that time, Julie had moved to Baltimore, but stayed in touch with Jenn. So Julie became part of those summer reunions.

Now, you’ll notice that when I was talking about us growing up, I didn’t mention anything about ‘dating’ or relationships. That wasn’t really a part of our lives then or something we talked about much. (I was still pretty much terrified of girls through high school…) But as those summer reunions went on during college, it was clear I really liked Julie, and Will would ask about any plans involving her and give me a little emotional nudge to try to make something happen. And whenever this came up, Will always had this big knowing smile – like he knew something before either of us did.

Over the years, with his encouragement, Julie and I grew closer. And now today, we’ve been married for 17 years. And when I think about our relationship, I still think about Will’s big knowing smile, and how he is part of the fabric of our relationship. I’m sure that is true for others here today.

So while I am grateful for all of the impossibly unlikely events that had to occur to create my friend Will, I’m also grateful to Will for the joy and love that he actively worked to bring into my life, and that I carry with me today.