“I'm just an American boy in a truck,” said Stephen Beech at the end of one of our first dates. It was Valentine's Day 1993, and I was leaving in my apartment in Santa Monica.
His comment was supposed to act as a deterrent element by explaining why he was not man for me. It had gone through difficult years. His first marriage was over, and he wasn't looking for a serious relationship. Anyway, he said we were from different worlds. He was a manager owned by Philadelphia, I was also a British journalist based in Los Angeles, while Stephen intended to remain single, was on a mission to meet the right man and start a family.
But he had already discovered that the tall, introspective and handsome man who was falling in love had hidden depths. He played a classic guitar and was also fun and philosophical. I met him in a part -time master program in spiritual psychology at the University of Santa Monica. The fact that he led a truck only joined the romantic charm.
There was clearly an attraction for its part as well. After all, we were kissing in his blue truck outside my apartment. So we continued leaving, and we went everywhere in that blue truck: coffees and dinners, it drives along the Pacific coast road to Malibu or further north to visit friends in Ojai. I learned more about his reluctance to get involved. Stephen and his first wife had lost their little girl for cancer. He had been trying to recover from intense pain and rebuild his life without the complications of a relationship.
But our relationship assumed an unawile impulse, and for October, she was pregnant. When our daughter, Chace, was born in August 1994, we drove home from the hospital in the blue truck. When we bought our house in Santa Monica, Stephen accumulated all our possessions at the back of the truck. He used the truck to transport stones for our patio and plants from the garden center. When our second daughter, Av-Rose, arrived four years later, the truck remained reliable.
Eventually, however, he began to break. A spring day, I arrived at Casa del Labor just when Stephen stopped outside our house in a shiny, new white and white truck. Stephen didn't get much excited about much, but I was smiling widely as I turned around. The payments were $ 400 per month, a large part of their payment check, but it was worth it.
The truck became an integral part of life. There were heated conversations in the front and rear seats about school, friendships and politics and there were fights about music: if we should listen to Radio Disney or the Kusc classic station. Often, the consensus ended up being “The Weight”, our favorite song of Stephen's favorite band, the band.
Most of the mornings would take the girls to school: Ava invariably left the house with panic, eating the bowl of oats that her father had made her breakfast on the road while ending her homework. Ava would lead to fencing competitions throughout California. He took Ava and Chace to Ballet, and used the truck to load the equipment when he was volunteering on stage for the production of “The Nutcracker” of the West School of Ballet every year.
When our daughters were in their adolescence, they took their friends to the holidays, happy to be the designated father who picked up everyone in the first hours and made sure they got home safely. He was always putting his truck to good use helping friends and neighbors.
Often there were surprise gifts delivered in the truck: a birthday, it was a purple glycinian tree; A Valentine's Day, it was a vintage o'Keefe & Merritt stove.
But my favorite memories of Stephen and his truck were more mundane, who involved innumerable fortuitous meetings in Santa Monica. He would be walking our dogs, Puck and Chaucer, and Stephen would be driving along the same path. He slowed the speed, the left elbow rested in the open window and stopped for a quick conversation: “What happens?”
The truck was emblematic of man. Reliable. Durable. Reliable. Sure. Strong. Until it was not. On March 12, 2018, Stephen called from work to say that he didn't feel good. He was shuffling and unstable on his feet. I suggested that I had to lead to the emergency room just to verify that everything was fine.
That was the last time Stephen drove his truck. He was admitted to the hospital, had a brain exploration and was diagnosed with a brain trunk tumor. His condition deteriorated quickly. My strong American in a truck could no longer drive. After three main surgeries in rapid succession, I was in a wheelchair and could not walk. Stephen delivered the keys of his truck to Chace, who had moved home from New York, where he had been working to help take care of his father. (Av was in his first year at the university). Chace led us to oncology appointments until he became too difficult and Stephen needed to be collected by private ambulance.
During the next 3 and a half years, Stephen gradually lost his ability to speak, eat or breathe independently. But it was still brave and optimistic. Like the robust white truck, Stephen's spirit and the will to live were strong.
Today, almost four years since Stephen lost his battle against brain cancer, it's time to say goodbye to the truck. Chace has already spent thousands of dollars on repairs, so we have made the difficult decision to donate it to charity.
Part of the deep pain that I have experienced since Stephen was initially diagnosed with an incurable gliome seven years ago had decreased a bit, but has returned. I miss Stephen and I'm sad not to see the truck when I walk early in the morning.
On a recent Sunday, I decide to handle and clean the rooted dirt. I am sure that wherever I am, Stephen is shooting my eyes, laughing at my careless use of the hose while I finish soaked. I am sure that there is also an ironic smile while you see me take the truck to drive (the first) along our road, encouraged by Dave, our neighbor next door.
“You have to drive it once,” says Dave, so.
I will miss the white truck: resistant, friendly and generous, as well as the American guy who possessed it. But it is time to leave in my next adventure, knowing that Stephen's spirit will always be by my side in the passenger seat.
The author is a senior writer in Thrive Global. Before Thrive, he wrote for the United Kingdom and Global newspapers, including The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph and The Mail on Sunday. It was also BBC television correspondent and other United Kingdom networks.
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