I rise to do my morning yoga, and I realize it is Duncan’s birthday, his 70th. My mind is immediately flooded with memories of our lives together, which grow in meaning for me with passage of time. The mark of a true lifelong friend.

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I am 11, and my parents have moved me from the overcrowded parochial school that is all I’ve known to a small private boys school. I know almost no one there, and it feels like the others have been together for years. I have no clue how to fit in to the culture and can’t wait for each day to end. Before long, though, a goofy-looking red-haired kid, who seems well liked by everyone, invites me to spend the night at his home. I have more fun than I can ever remember, and when I return the favor it is even better. In short order I am “one of Duncan’s friends,” and school life is suddenly easier.

That summer, much to my delight, my parents move our family to a house two blocks from Duncan’s. As we enter 7th grade, we begin walking to and from school every day, a practice we keep up through high school graduation. We spend afternoons and weekends together, too, listening to the Beatles and the Grateful Dead, sharing a love of the Colorado mountains, getting in good trouble (and bad) together, and always having each other’s backs.

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I watched Duncan exercise his superpower of radical hospitality many times over these years. If a kid seemed lost—or, even worse, ostracized—Duncan would reach out, bring him into our ever-expanding circle, and simply say, “Jeff’s cool”—and it became so. Though I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to do this as intentionally and seamlessly as Duncan. There are many who, like me, revere Duncan for the quality of his friendship. My bond with him somehow feels unique, but others feel the same way about theirs.

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There is a shadow underneath Duncan’s sunny disposition, though, and I understand why. He is the youngest brother in a patriarchal family led by his maternal grandfather; many mornings his grandfather and older brothers are gathered over business at the breakfast table when I arrive for Duncan. I sit on the steps nearby and can’t help overhearing them berate Duncan as a loser who won’t amount to much. They may think they are challenging him to raise his game, but I can watch him slowly internalize their messaging.

We are juniors, and our math teacher is called out of the classroom for a moment. We seize the opportunity to look through the grade book sitting on his desk. Everyone’s grades are pretty much as we expect, but we note an unmarked column of numbers that we determine are IQ test scores. We are stunned to see that Duncan has the highest score of all, even though his school performance is below average. We declare him the most underperforming student in the school, in the spirit of rebellious admiration, but I can watch Duncan internalize this label, too.

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As I reflect on the depth of our friendship during these years, I recognize we are kindred spirits in more ways than I could see at the time. I, too, had older siblings that I felt I couldn’t measure up to, and a home I longed to escape from. I, too, had been startled to learn that my IQ score was quite high, only slightly lower than Duncan’s; for me, though, this news gave me confidence that if I cared more I could do better, and I began to respond accordingly.

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I head off to college and Duncan follows me out to Portland, though to a different college due to his lower grades. He never returns for a second semester, instead taking an entry level job in the family business. I try to connect with him during trips back to Kansas City, but with little success. I see his lovely mother the day before our 20th high school reunion and she tells me Duncan is excited to see me there, but he ghosts all events he has signed up for. Years later he serves as an intern on a geology field project led by one of my sisters; she says he seems great, and would love to see me.

It is 2007, and my father has died. At my sister’s urging, Duncan shows up at a post-memorial gathering at another sister’s home. Duncan’s red hair has turned white, but it is as if nothing else has changed. We hug tightly, cry copiously, and spend several hours filling in the blanks of the years gone by. Duncan has bounced around in his work and his relationships, but drugs and alcohol have been steady companions. Duncan tells me he has no liver left and is on borrowed time. It is a shock but not a surprise when we learn later that year that he’s been found dead, slumped over his guitar—52 years old.

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Duncan lives on in the lives of those he touched. Several of us exchange emails whenever stirred by memories of Duncan, most recently when Phil Lesh of the Dead died. We do so again today, on his 70th birthday. We all miss him dearly. I was blessed to have him in my life when I did, and I am blessed to have a community of friends and family with whom I can share his memory today.

I’ve never succeeded in conveying Duncan’s profound spirit to anyone who didn’t experience it directly. On one level he was simply someone who never amounted to much—as the men in his family predicted—a slacker who squandered the benefits of a privileged upbringing. But, as I’ve experienced often, such a surface can obscure a rich, complex, and spirit-filled human within, and that person’s spirit can create a ripple deeper and more powerful than anything one might easily observe.

Duncan helped me believe in my own self-worth in ways that no one else had before, and he taught me that even the most unlikely people are worthy of friendship and respect. Duncan’s spirit continues to inspire and inform my work in chaplaincy today.

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More stories of Duncan are contained in the beautiful New Yorker article Scars, written by David Owen, another member of my class touched deeply by Duncan. I am “Henry” in this article, a moniker I carried throughout these years. The photo of Duncan accompanying this post was taken by David in the San Juan mountains of southwestern Colorado, a place we all thought of as heaven on earth.