The Life of Chris

The first time I remember seeing Chris Griffin, he and a friend were making their way up a snowy path in Bear Valley, California as they headed to the same potluck my friend, Pam Jamison, and I were attending. The tall, mustached redhead held a two-pound package of raw spaghetti, his buddy a bottle of Ragu. I liked Chris on the spot.

He was probably only 19 at that point, a whole two years younger than I, but he sure didn’t look like a teenager. A couple of years later, he bounced into the Altitude, where he had bartended most of that time, and thumped his boss on the back. “Buy me a drink, Danno!” he boomed, his grin seemingly stretching as wide as his wide shoulders. “It’s my 21st birthday.”

Dan thought he was joking until Chris brandished his license. The owner of the bar and restaurant was appalled for all of three seconds as he undoubtedly thought about what could have happened had his underage bartender been nailed. Then his laugh joined Chris’s and, yes, he bought his wayward employee a birthday shot.

By then Chris had learned how to ski. I’m not sure if he taught himself or if the vast number of friends he had acquired in town — ski instructors, ski patrollers, and pretty much everyone else — gave him tips out of a sense of self-defense. I witnessed Chris’s initial lack of skiing prowess one blue-bird morning when a group of us were pack skiing. As always, we had stopped at the bottom of our favorite run to chat. Suddenly, we looked up to see a large man barreling straight down at us, his skis about three feet apart. He didn’t turn once. I was pretty sure he didn’t know how.

Did I mention this was a black-diamond run, one of the steeper in the ski area?

We’re going to die, I thought. From their slack-jawed expressions, I’m pretty sure the others thought so too, but, as if frozen, not a single one of us moved to get out of the way. At the last moment, less than five feet from the group, Chris cranked his skis to the right–his brute strength making up for his apparent total lack of skill–and came to a stop.

“Do that again and I’ll blow your head off,” screamed my friend, Kevin McDonough, who would go on to become one of Chris’s close friends.

Chris’s beatific grin never faltered.

A dozen or so years later, after losing his arm and his shoulder in an accident at a rock-crushing plant, Chris won a bronze medal in Giant Slalom at the 1992 Paralympic Games in Albertville. He would also participate in the Lillehammer 1994 Paralympic Games.

While he did not medal again, he–along with the rest of the Olympic athletes who had competed in those winter games–did get to meet President Clinton. The anticipation of that event was one of the few times I ever saw Chris get nervous. He was about to meet the most powerful man in the world, and he didn’t have a right hand to extend. How would the president react?

Since every athlete there got a photo op with President Clinton, the rest milled around the White House’s East Room after Hillary, dressed in a turquoise suit adorned with an orange, floral-print scarf, greeted them. “Welcome everybody,” she exclaimed with a big smile as she applauded the Olympians. “How are you?” During her opening remarks, she thanked the many athletes who had visited the local schools that morning and spoke about how important it was for other people to see the Olympians and Paralympians, and to understand how hard they had worked to get where they were. “Not everybody can win a gold, silver, or bronze in an athletic event,” she recalled the kids being told that day, “but they can all win a medal in life if they just keep it up and keep doing it and never give up.”

Chris was not the easiest guy to impress, but Hillary positively dazzled him. He found her warm, funny, and absolutely authentic–perhaps his biggest litmus test. When it was finally time for Chris to meet the president, he extended his left hand. Clinton took it in both of his. “It’s an honor, Mr. President,” Chris said.

“No; the honor is mine,” the president responded.

They turned to the camera and the photographer snapped the pic. Chris was making his exit when he suddenly turned around. “Mr. President,” he said. “Your wife’s a babe.”

Of all the memories President Clinton has from being in office, I’m going to guess he hasn’t forgotten that comment from a one-armed, balding-by-then redhead.

Chris Griffin lived life his way, indifferent to social convention, and he lived huge. His passing leaves a crater that no one else will ever fill. On the other hand, he impacted so many in such a profound way that he will be here with us always and even after that.