In loving memory: One of my two best friends died recently. When I say best friends, I mean someone who would do anything for you, no questions asked.

Someone who will tell you the truth, even when it would be easier and more comfortable not to. Someone who always has time for you, who shares their joy and pain and secrets.

Those people are rare, and because they’re rare, they are precious. To have two such people in my life is largesse beyond anything I would ever have imagined possible. Now one of them is gone.

At 69 years old, Rod Nichols died way too soon. If I was a philosophical sort, I would say that whenever we take our leave, we’re right on time. I am decidedly not that sort. I am heartbroken, and not a little ticked off.

I admit there could have been no time ever that I would be gracious about losing Rod. He was quietly, steadfastly good. He was patient and generous, scary smart and wickedly funny.

He was always game. And he was kind. Abidingly kind. It takes fortitude and effort, and so very much heart, to be consistently kind. Rod is the only person in my experience who managed it.

I met Rod in 1993, when we were both neck deep in the restaurant biz. Over the years we shared our experiences of countless kitchens, where we did everything from washing the dishes to mopping the floors at the end of shift. Rod often cooked. I did the world a favor, and kept to the front of the house, well away from the stove.

We struggled to balance the books, keep good help and make a buck. Rod succeeded for far longer than the expected lifespan of a restaurant. He owned and worked at Vista Sea Cafe on Broadway in Seaside for 19 years, employing legions of Seaside kids along the way.

Rod was an artist by nature and by training. I loved his stories of leaving art school and moving to Paris to paint; of his friends and adventures there. In 2019, I traveled to Europe with both of my best friends, Norma Hernandez and Rod. Seeing Barcelona and Bilbao and Bordeaux through Rod’s eyes was a revelation.

Art museums were a whole other thing when we went with Rod. He would wander off to follow the muse that only he could hear. Norma and I would follow the map from room to room, and inevitably find the bar where we would absorb the culture around us with benefit of a cold beverage.

Eventually Rod would find us and, over a cocktail, tell us about things he saw. He saw them the way the artists must have hoped they would be seen.

Over many dinners, over many years, Rod and I shared stories and tried to justify our common weaknesses. Among them, countless dogs that needed rescuing, the tendency to volunteer until spare time was only a concept and marriages that went south (three each). I finally got the marriage thing right on the fourth try. Rod didn’t live long enough to even the score.

I am not a crier. I have lost grandparents, parents, a beloved aunt and a brother, shedding very few tears in the process. My heart’s compass always swings toward thankfulness. Thankfulness that I had them in my life. That is a very big thing, that having someone exceptional in your life thing. It leaves little room for tears.

My beloved husband, Tom, and I have inherited Rod’s dog, Spud. All 15 years and 14 pounds of him. He is virtually deaf. He has only two teeth cruelly placed upper right and lower left. He has arthritis, takes pills with every meal and is an austere judge of character. For some reason, he likes me. It’s probably the home-cooked doggie dinners.

Whatever the reason, I love this little dog of Rod’s. I talk to him relentlessly, never caring that he can’t hear me. I talk to him about Rod, and he rewards me with a fierce loyalty that won’t allow him to be more than a foot from my side.

I haven’t cried for the loss of Rod Nichols. I’m just too grateful to be maudlin. But, I will absolutely cry when Spud dies. Rod knew this about me.

— by Merianne Myers