This is a good man.

He was only my stepfather for something just over 19 years, but I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know him. It was a smallish town. He and his family lived around the corner, and his youngest was one of my brother’s earliest and best friends. We all went to the same country club on Saturdays, and the same church on Sundays. In season, we hunted the same dove fields. Dad took care of the Green animals, and Doc took care of the Farmer eyes.

Eventually, everyone got divorced, because it was the 70s and such things were mandatory. (My parents liked it so much they did it again, even.) Eventually, though, everyone was single. And then, at some point — I can’t recall exactly when — mother and John began dating. I don’t know if it was before my father died or not, but it didn’t become a serious Thing until fairly late in high school for me. They took their time with it, for sure. I think, by the time they married in 1996, they’d been dating for over a decade. The six kids all sort of assumed they’d do it as soon as the youngest two left home, but Frank and Mary Beth matriculated at their respective schools in the fall of 1993, and they waited another 2+ years. Old people, man.

John was, without a doubt, the best thing to ever happen to my mother. Frank and I were grown and gone by the time they married and combined households, so he was always more “our mother’s husband” than “father figure,” but that didn’t stop him from treating us as his own in every way. And we loved him for it, and especially for how he treated our mother.

Our mom is tough and solid and no-nonsense, because she had to be as single mother in the 70s and 80s. She was a single mom twice, really, first because of the divorce, and then in a much more serious way after dad died in 1986. She was due some easier years, and some time being taken care of, and John gave her both. He doted on her, cared for her, and made her happier than I ever remember seeing her. They traveled together — big, fancy trips! — and they loved it, but I’m not sure they didn’t love spending time on John’s tree farm more. It’s quiet there, and peaceful, and serves as a fantastic antidote to loud, chattery modern life. They knew what they wanted in a marriage, and how to do it and take care of each other. In that, they have been especially inspiring.

John turned 80 this fall — he’s a bit older than Mother. I guess we all knew that, well, 80 is getting up there. Something might claim him. On the other hand, he’s traditionally been hearty, hale, and healthy kind of guy — he split his own firewood until fairly recently, and was fond of long hikes in his woods, so even as we knew he was 80, I don’t think any of us quite accepted that he was, like all of us, a fragile human.

Last October, just before his birthday, he was diagnosed with inoperable metastatic cancer. Given the particulars, he refused any but palliative care, figuring that for him and for his family, getting the most GOOD days beat out simply living longer in a medical haze.

We had a wonderful birthday party for him the next month — there are pictures. The holidays were as rich and delighful as I ever remember them being in Mississippi. Erin and I got to spend a lot of time there, just being with him and with mother and with our shared, extended family. There are pictures of that, too.

After the holidays, he began to dwindle. Hospice care began.

This morning, about an hour ago, mother called me. John Green, one of my favorite people ever, has passed away. He was 80. We will miss him terribly.

It’s my birthday. I’m 45.

This year has had some really good things in it — another MS150, a great summer and fall of cycling, a great cruise, wonderful visits with friends and family, and Erin got a new job! — but some pretty serious rough spots, too. Obviously, I broke my hip in November, and that’s been a long haul, but around the same time my stepfather was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

I had thought, years ago, that this year would be one I threw a big party. 45 is a big number, and it’s one of those rare years when my birthday falls, as it did in 1970, on a Friday. Widespread uncertainty about my leg kept us from planning anything — we didn’t get the “yup, fracture’s healed & gone” report until Wednesday — so it’s turned out to be a low-key year instead, for that and lots of reasons. I’m a little bummed about that, but not a lot.

But there’s one more than that puts me in a good mood about it today, and it’s an example of a kind of enduring friendship we probably don’t give enough credit to. In elementary and middle school, one of my best friends was a guy named Paul. Paul and I were in the same scout troop, took the same smart-kid classes, and lived reasonably close to each other. In high school, we moved in somewhat different directions, but we’ve always been friends. I remember, on a whirlwind trek from Tuscaloosa to UVa one weekend in 1990 (to help a buddy see a girl), I dropped in on him to say hi. And that may be the last time I saw him in the flesh, which makes the rest of this even more remarkable.

Paul’s not on Facebook or any social media I’m aware of. We don’t email, or really communicate outside the following. But for the last 7 or 8 years, Paul has called me on my birthday every year, without fail. He’s a busy guy — so am I — and we live very different lives now. Paul’s a cardiologist, recently moved from New Orleans to Nashville, and is the father of quadruplets. Obviously Heathen Central is a nerd lair of the first order, and features cats, not kids. But he remembers, and calls, just to wish me a happy birthday.

It’s a nice thing, and it’s the sort of thing that reminds me to be grateful for the life I have, bumps and all, because it has so much joy and happiness in it even when things seem tough.

Happy birthday to me. Cheers. Know that I am insanely grateful for you all.

Allow me to remind you of the existence of Representative John Lewis, who recently appeared on the Daily Show.

1. A Rolls Royce. There are plenty of super fancy cars in Houston, but seeing an actual Rolls is still pretty rare. I’ve seen more Lambos than Rollses. Very shiny. Possibly related to items 2 or 4 below (or, well, 3 for all I know):

2. Josh Hamilton. I had no idea who he was. He stopped to talk to my therapist Chris — who is, apparently, also his therapist — and they looked briefly at some footage of him batting in a cage as part of his rehab program. The hits sounded solid; I said so after he’d walked away. Chris, realizing I had no idea who he was, enlightened me once Hamilton was out of earshot.

3. A likely Holocaust survivor. Well, either that, or a very, very old man of obvious European extraction who just randomly had a number tattooed on his forearm.

4. Seattle Seahawk Earl Thomas, whom I also didn’t recognize. Chris pointed him out after telling me who Hamilton was.

This weekend marks 50 years since Selma.

I know lots of folks from Mississippi and Alabama who are 70 or older. Every time an anniversary like this comes up, I wonder “what were YOU doing then, when these folks were beaten on the bridge?”

History is judging the anti-civil-rights crowd very harshly, but don’t those who sat it out bear some responsibility, too, for not helping? To what degree is “I was in school” or “I was busy” an excuse?

And then I wonder: what am I sitting out, or not noticing, or not helping with today, that my nieces and nephew will wonder about in 20 or 30 years?