It’s somewhat baffling, because there is no connection whatsoever between the death of Chris Hondros, who was killed by mortar fire in the warm and pleasant spring of Libya, and snowfall. In fact, I have very few memories of Chris in the snow, and standing on my back porch watching it fall—clad in fleece pajamas with a glass of wine in my hand, my back to the scene in our living room of a hearthful of burning logs and The Shining on TV as a precursor to Halloween—I had to really try to remember when we were last together in a snowstorm. I had to reach back about three years for a memory, but it was a good one.

Sometime just before Christmas in 2008, I made one of my semiannual pilgrimages to New York City to, as Chris always said, “pay homage” to the publishing capital of the world. This was when Chris still lived in his loft on Tillary Street in Brooklyn, and because of the drafty floor-to-ceiling windows that insulated the apartment about as well as our wishful thinking, it was freezing cold. We sat around his apartment in sweaters and overcoats, shivering and trying to pretend the temperature wasn’t subarctic despite having the heater pegged on its highest setting. Chris tried everything he could to warm the place, including leaving all of his burners on the gas stove at a low flame and constantly keeping a kettle of boiling water steaming into the room in an effort to raise the humidity.

Finally, it became too cold to bear and Chris announced that he had a solution—we were heading to Home Depot to buy a new rug. The apartment’s problem, he decided, was its concrete floors that were as cold as ice. “A nice rug,” he said, “will do the trick.”

The trouble was that the main area in the loft was about 800 square feet of open space, variously covered in sundry rugs that were doing no good at all to trap heat. Chris was convinced that a bare spot right in the middle was the culprit and he was determined to cover it for good and finally solve his home heating problem.

Home Depot in Manhattan had a surprisingly vast selection of rugs, but none were bigger than ten square feet. Convinced we were wasting time and money, I suggested the cheapest rug in stock, about $50, but Chris didn’t like the pattern. In the end, he went with a $100-or-so selection in a beige and pale green paisley design that I hated. We were like bickering spouses, arguing over cost and patterns in the middle of Home Depot, but in the end, it was his apartment. Back home, the rug did nothing to stave off the cold but I refilled the kettle and said nothing.

It was a bitterly cold week in New York, rugs or not. I remember it being a penultimate example of any visit with Hondros, but spiced with a holiday flavor. During any of my trips east, Chris put together an agenda, which inevitably included several parties in which he would arrange for the orbits of his influential media friends to intersect with my far limited one. We crashed many that week, including (by accident) a same-sex civil union reception at which we knew no one but where we ended up staying for over an hour even after we realized we were at the wrong apartment.

At one point in the night, it started to snow—heavy wet rainy snow that’s not like what I’m used to in Colorado. I remember stumbling after Chris to his car and remarking that he wore a scarf in all four seasons, but never a hat when he needed one. Too drunk to attend the last soirée of the evening, I lazed in the passenger seat of the double-parked car while Chris made an appearance inside, watching the snow build on the windshield and listening to the same hush that heavy snowfall always produces, no matter where you are. That’s a scene that could create anxiety in any other circumstance—illegally parked on some dark street in the meat district, not even knowing what building my friend is in—but I wasn’t worried about anything. I never was when I was with Chris.

That hush and solitude and the unique peace of a heavy snowfall continued a bit later, after we’d gotten home to Tillary Street and retreated to his rooftop deck for a nightcap and to watch the snow come down all around us. We smoked cigars and drank brandy and cognac and just enjoyed the cold, quiet experience.

Tonight, I enjoyed the cold, quiet experience with my dog lying at my feet and some animal, a fox or raccoon, rustling through the bushes just beyond the light from the porch, seeking shelter. I expected only to come outside to gauge the intensity of the storm, but wound up in a reverie I hadn’t expected, feeling a new edge on the crater of my loss that seems to know no depth. I think more than anything, I was amazed that snow could fall without him being here to see it, or being somewhere where I could email him and tell him about it.

In my mind, he’s still out there in that warm and pleasant Libyan springtime where everything stopped forever, and where it could never possibly snow.

About the photo: Taken by our close friend Jeff Swensen.