My Friend Jeff Zaslow

When you’re middle-aged, what the hell is a friend, anyway? Some of my favorite people I see for one long weekend every year, a conference. In between there will be a handful of emails and, these days, rather more frequently, single-sentence repartee on Facebook. I often have met their spouses, briefly, but damn if I know the names or interests of their children or if their parents are still alive.

Here in the home town, I do know those details of a good many people. They’re people my wife and I socialize with. Spend time with them no less than monthly. We’ve eaten in one another’s homes. We’ve attended the funerals of their loved ones and they mine.

Yet, I am uncomfortable calling members of either group good friends. I don’t know the definition anymore.

The image of friend that I cannot shake is the childhood one.

Those were close friends, you know nearly every thing about them and they you. I made those kinds of friends through college, but just for a few years afterward. (The best thing about Facebook, that would not have happened any other way — annual Christmas cards? You’ve got to be kidding — is reconnecting with those early friends.)

In terms of hours together and personal details shared — few — technically my conference friends are acquaintances. It also means that nobody bar one is a best friend. My Beloved is the sole owner of that title. But that insults all of us. These people that I know and who know me, either across town or across several states, well, we enjoy one another’s company immensely. So we must be friends. Even if we have to identify ourselves when phoning.

I had a comfortable familiarity with Jeff Zaslow. I last saw him in June 2011 at the National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ conference, this time in Detroit. He lived near the city but he could spare the weekend barely a half-day, due to a book deadline. His reporting and writing career exploded with the success of The Last Lecture, the first of several memoir-ish books where he sat second chair to the big name. This opportunity allowed him to solo in book-length non-fiction projects, such as The Girls from Ames.

What did we talk about? I was helping run the conference, so we talked about scheduling and other logistics, but full of quips and winks.

Here’s the thing. We talked like friends.

We talked exactly like we work in the same newsroom and only last saw one another just before lunch today.

Over the years I have met people who by my lights are tremendously successful. I measure that by accomplishments in the creative arts or in compassionate acts. Jeff’s books and his Wall Street Journal column “Moving On” hit both. His subjects taught readers and inspired them.

As he said in his speeches to the NSNC conferences (2007 and 2009), the most important equipment in his journalism toolbox was curiosity. That led him to details others hadn’t uncovered. Thus research and interviewing techniques and organization came out of that curiosity.

The people I define as successful have been, to a one, nice. That’s it, nice. Jeff was a nice man.

Here is an e-mail dated Nov. 28, 2007:

Hi Ben,
“Thanks for the support. I am in Virginia to interview Randy [Pausch] and the USA Today at my hotel door has a lead life section story on the [Last Lecture] book deal. So i can’t get back to sleep. It is all a little overwhelming. I have to write the whole book by jan 15!!!!
“Hope all is well with you.
“Best
“Jeff”

All this is by way of acknowledging we never will meet on this Earth again. Jeffrey Zaslow about a year younger than me at age 53, died Friday morning in a car accident, slid on a snowy Michigan road into a semi. He is survived by his wife and three daughters.

Besides replaying that hectic Detroit afternoon eight months ago, I confess to looking for meaning. Something like: Knowing Jeff’s life and saddened by his way-too-early death will inspire me.

Even if his example does teach me, I must not consider that route. Death is not worth it.

Nor will you see this, outside of this quote, “He will be missed.” What is a hack editorial cliche sentence. Bet he never used it.

“I will miss him.” Slightly better.

I miss Jeff Zaslow.