Over the past two months, I've heard a lot of stories about how people got to know Stephen in different times and places. I'm afraid I can't say exactly how I first met Stephen. I know what was going on before that: I was seven years old, in a new town and a new school, bewildered and alone and facing a teacher who yelled a lot. That was before. And then: there were other people with me. There was Darren, who was funny and a seven-year-old version of suave, and Albert, who could read as well as I could. And there was another boy, roughly my size, roughly my coloring, with pageboy bangs. That was Stephen, and we were in it together.

When you're close enough to someone, for long enough, your lives become made up of each other's memories. In that person, the deeds and the days are recorded, against the blank and forgetting universe. That's how you know what happened. This is the trust we put in one another.

As far as I remember, Stephen was there the first time I: Slept away from my family. Watched a music video. Learned multiplication. Got thrown out of class. Heard Grandmaster Flash. Bowled a turkey frame. Made a date with a girl. Got dumped by a girl. Gave money to a panhandler. Successfully raised one eyebrow, without looking. Witnessed an inside-the-park home run. Saw a gallery full of modern art.

Stephen was with me, in the theater, when Luke Skywalker faced down and defeated the Dark Side of the Force.

When we were 11 or 12, we would go out at night, the little band of us who all slept over. Once we'd decided that the whole world was good and asleep, we would get ourselves outside: tiptoeing across the Stureks' porch, or climbing over the Stevens' TV and out the basement window, or wriggling out the Kellers' dog door. We would creep through the chilly, empty streets, by moonlight, looking for nothing more than the assurance that we really, truly had this world all to ourselves.

Later, in high school, Stephen was there in the driver's seat, with me on the passenger side. Somehow, I made it through those years without getting a driver's license. Somehow? Mostly due to the infinite patience and mercy of Stephen. I bummed rides home from school, out to games, to Riverside, Havre de Grace, Baltimore. He came by in the silver Coronet, the blue Escort wagon, the VW bus. The yellow Mercury, in a pinch. Sometimes the place that we needed to go was nowhere: to stretch out a bright fall afternoon between school and homework; to meander around on a leafy summer night with the ballgame on the radio.

When I finally did get my license, I became a driver. This would be a surprise to folks who knew me from Stephen's--or their own--passenger seat. But dozens of people would know me as the wheelman, the designated driver, the ride home from work. I had a very big debt to repay.

And I had a high standard to match. Stephen was an excellent driver, on two continents. But then, he did most things well. He was a decent athlete, if not a star jock. He carried himself well, better than most of us. He was handsome without being overly handsome, smart without being overbearing about it, sociable without being a glad-hander, upright without being a prig. He had, in short, a full set of gifts and virtues, without being irritating about it. As far as we knew growing up, he lacked nothing.

A group of us were riding in a car on Route 40, eastbound, when he told us about the leukemia. We were shocked and terrified, naturally. But we were also disturbed, and ashamed, even. We had been living on the surface of things, without knowing the perils underneath. Stephen had known. He had known, and he had kept the knowledge to himself. He had held all that inside him.

There had been the spleen. We had shuttled to the hospital straight after school, the rest of us, keeping vigil. Then the intestinal surgery--a second stroke of lightning in the same place. He came back, and we said, Come on, Steve. You're running out of parts. What will they take next? That was the joke. He chuckled and turned back to his German work. He did not say, my BONE MARROW, you jerks.

Competence is an odd virtue to claim for a childhood friend. But there it is: Stephen was profoundly, instinctively competent. That is the true point of the Christmas Street Parade incident. It's not that we were able to sneak the Coronet into the staging area behind the banks, to festoon it with hastily gathered decorations, to fasten a two- or three-foot artificial tree to the hood, to slip into the parade traffic, to roll triumphantly down West Bel Air Avenue, nor even to make our clean getaway. None of that. The point was, we knew from the moment the plan was hatched that we were going to pull it off. Because when Stephen Keller was in on a project, that project got done right.

(The same principle applies to the Band Room Miniature Golf incident, the Three Buck Night on School Nights incidents, and the Make It Clear We Need Longer Volleyball Uniform Shorts incident.)

And then, after the transplant, how could we doubt him? He had walked out of the valley of the shadow of Death, and now he had his eye on the light. He could leave his country to study abroad; he could follow his heart to a hill town his friends and family had never heard of, a place where he couldn't speak the language.

And he did. He married a woman who was his match and his equal. He fathered a bright and charming son and was waiting on a daughter. He had a comfortable and well-appointed home. He was surrounded by new friends and a new family, and he had the leisure time to enjoy all this. He ate well.

I have a photograph from Stephen's wedding day. Stephen is standing indoors, in white shirtsleeves, with the phone to his ear. He's still, but all around him, people are springing into motion, adjusting jackets and ties. Everyone has been waiting for this phone call. It is one of the happiest moments I can remember: Stephen is going forth to meet his bride.

How are we supposed to live our lives, if not like this? If not like he did?

The good thing about that question is, you can ask it when you're angry, and you can ask it again when the anger has broken and passed.

Stephen knew what he was doing. He knew what he was doing all along.

One last memory: Stephen and I were at Memorial Stadium one summer afternoon, in the upper deck, when the rain started to fall. The game was delayed; umbrellas started going up around the ballpark. We didn't have umbrellas ourselves, so we just stood there. The day got darker; the rain got heavier. Gradually, the people around us started clearing out, umbrellas or not. We stayed. The rain got heavier. Before long, in our only flash of wisdom that day, we stowed our wallets in a plastic bag. Then we just let the rain pound us. We were the only people left out in it and we were soaked through; water was cascading down the stadium bowl and sloshing in our shoes. So we did the only thing there was left to do: we began jumping around like a pair of four-year-olds, running up and down the waterfall that was the steps, hopping in the deep spots to watch the water spray. We carried on like this for a while.

Then we happened to look across the stadium and down. We were alone, capering in the rain, yes. But we'd forgotten about the hundreds of people in the lower deck. They had stayed in their seats, sheltered by the overhang, to watch a pair of teenagers make complete fools of themselves. There was nothing else for them to watch. We froze. All at once I felt how soggy I was.

And then? What else was there to do? Stephen and I began jumping around again.