Into the Closeout: Greg Browning and a life spent chasing waves

by Joel P Elliott

The images that Greg Browning posted to Instagram on January 11, 2023 were initially flagged and blurred by the platform for being graphic. A mishap while surfing that morning had caused his chin and board to connect, resulting in damage to both, and somewhere in the chaos of the wipeout, that tender meat between the chin and neck had been fileted by jagged fiberglass.

Browning’s instinct as a filmmaker and former professional surfer was to document the injury while still in his wetsuit, and again after he had changed out of it. By then, he was sitting in the driver’s seat of his truck. The blood was thickening, and it was dangling in an interesting way from the chunk of surfboard embedded in his throat.

“I would love to say that this all happened trying to do the turn of my life or pulling into a little runner but it did not. I paddled into a set and tried to stand up and had no strength in my left arm to get up and ended up dropping-in on my stomach and taking the lip to the head at the bottom [of the wave]. I have been having crazy weakness in my left arm, including shoulder and fingers. Half strength at best. I have been trying to self-diagnose for the last month but no luck. Haha. The doctor this morning said it could be nerve related. So weird to surf your whole life and then not be able to barely stand up. Whole new perspective.” 

To many, the post didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary. Not necessarily. Pros are no strangers to injury and Browning’s own confident demeanor in that moment was somehow reassuring.

The responses were lighthearted. Most offered hopes for a speedy recovery. Friends poked fun at him for falling. A few recounted similar experiences. One offered a silver lining: scars are sexy. SmileyFace.

Greg getting ready to surf the Avenues, Redondo Beach, 1997. Photo by Mike Balzer

Only one or two saw it then for what it was. They saw that for some time now, Browning had unsuccessfully been trying to figure out this arm thing on his own and that he didn’t know what to do. They saw that he was asking, in his own way, for help. At the time, no one knew that help would not fix what had long ago begun to occur.

Gregory Michael Browning was born in 1974, the younger of two boys, Jeffrey being his elder by three years. Chip Browning had settled his young family in Huntington Beach, close to the engineering work. But, by 1982, Dinah Browning was a single mother sorting her way through the turbulence of divorce. According to Greg, she moved them, “kicking and screaming,” to Hermosa Beach.

Jack Doolittle (left) posing in his sister’s bikini and Greg with his house key around his neck, Hermosa Beach, 1982. Courtesy Greg Browning

What had once been a holiday-by-the-sea destination where ladies would stroll with gentlemen along a wooden boardwalk was now a gritty and worn, hard jazz town at the southern crook of Santa Monica Bay. It was a blue-collar affair for those working and raising families. For the bikers, beach bums, and junkies that had dropped out, Hermosa was simply home.

They found a cottage near the baseball field, and close to the water, two blocks south of the pier, just above Ardmore Avenue and the dilapidating Santa Fe Railroad tracks that still vaguely connected Hermosa, Redondo, Manhattan, and El Segundo to the outside world. 

Dinah found work as a receptionist and the boys were each given a house key. After losing his, Greg’s was tied to a string with the expectation that it would be worn as a necklace. Which he did. Their father’s engineering work had taken him inland to Glendora where they would spend weekends. But here, at mom’s house, the boys were latchkey kids, like the rest of south Hermosa. Making ends meet required most of her time.

Greg was small for an 8-year-old, scrawny even. His high, squeaky voice was something to be self-conscious of, though he wasn’t. Like most bowl-cut boys of that era, he loved Star Wars, checkered Vans, and tube socks pulled up real high. Past the knees, if possible. Jeff had become a huge fan of professional wrestling and began an emotional retreat into his musical interests. As the brothers’ relative paths threatened to diverge, the younger boy found himself at a loss. He was worried that he was somehow responsible for the divorce, and for the way things were turning out.

It was somewhere in this uncertainty that Greg stumbled upon the toehold that would become his foundation. It would connect him to a world that would have a profound impact on the direction his life would take. He walked into the bathroom at school and found a boy in there alone, throwing wads of wet paper towels at the ceiling. And making them stick.

Greg thought it was amazing. 

Jack Doolittle laughs out loud at the memory of throwing those wads at the ceiling more than four decades ago. “Sounds about right,” he says, “I was a little shithead. Always getting detention and losing points. Greg was a good kid.”

The two quickly became close friends. Jack’s family was big and busy and it instinctively wrapped its arms around Greg from the moment he arrived. The dynamic was different at the Doolittle household and the next several years resembled one big slumber party. Greg and Jack and the siblings and friends would all camp out in one room together and watch movies until they fell asleep. Greg had discovered the chaos and energy of a large family of kids and the endless possibility that comes with it.

Jack had a Sure Grip skateboard that always pulled hard to the right, no matter what you did, so you had to get used to adjusting. Greg fell in love and it wasn’t long before he had one of his own. “At my house, I had to be home at 5. But if I was staying at Jack’s, we could stay out all night,” says Greg. “We would skateboard until we couldn’t skateboard anymore.”

When they were with their dad, he would take Jeff and Greg to the skatepark or help them build ramps in the driveway. Skating served as the common ground upon which the two again would bond. But Greg’s exceptional talent was immediately undeniable.

In one instance, when Jeff was 12 and Greg just 10, Jeff had spent hours on his own on a friend’s backyard skate ramp, learning to do a frontside air, a trick that involves launching off the top of the ramp and landing again as gravity takes over. He worked at it, falling, getting back up, trying again and again and again, making adjustments until he was finally able to land it with some confidence and consistency.

“Greg showed up, I think he was with Jack, he comes up on the platform, and I’m all, ‘Dude, check this out…’ and then I drop-in, BOOM! Pulled the air,” Jeff recalls, showing off to his brother. 

Greg was intrigued and asked how it was done.

“Okay, you gotta pound it down,” Jeff instructed, “you gotta unweight at the top, you gotta click the tail, you gotta turn your body down, and turn your head and then your body starts to fall, you grab onto the rail and spin it around and then when you get back over the ramp, you gotta slam your wheels down. And keep your knees flexed.”

“I’m gonna try it,” Greg announced.

Jeff was astonished when his little brother dropped in and landed the trick with effortless style on his first try. But Jeff was dumbfounded when Greg then did the more difficult version of the trick, riding it in reverse, or “backside.” Also on his first try.

“Holy shit, this guy,” Jeff recalls.

Twelve year old Greg making the airs his brother taught him look so easy, Hermosa Beach, 1986. Photo by Ronne Jones

The combination of living at the beach and riding skateboards naturally led to surfing. They were no strangers to the ocean. As young children, their parents would take them to the beach and they would ride an inflatable mat in the whitewater until it was eventually confiscated by lifeguards. After that, it was Boogie Boards and Ziffy-Boards, which were short, cheap, hollow, hard plastic boards of sorts that were meant to be ridden prone.

It was Jeff, in his pre-teen years, who was first to graduate to standing. Grandma BooBoo had an old surfboard at her house that their uncle had purchased when he returned from Vietnam. He was first to discover that the waves breaking just a few blocks from home could be ridden like moving skate ramps and found that the surrounding lifestyle had a magnetic draw on his soul.

“So much of the world disappears down at the beach,” says Jeff of the mystical effect that the ocean can have on the uncertainties of life.

Eleven year old Greg surfing south side Hermosa Pier, Hermosa Beach, 1985. Photo by Jeff Browning

The rest of their wild bunch would soon follow in his footsteps. Greg would find, at about 10, much like his older brother had, once the surf took hold, and the people that came with it entered his life, he had found his home.

“I would wake up, go up the street three doors and get the Barhoum family: Sim, Dino, Chris. Go back home, wake up Jeff,” Greg says. “Go across the street, grab Erik Torfin. Go up the street, grab Gannon Boyd. Every day, I would wax everybody’s boards because I was so excited. Making the best beads, you know, dream about the waves. And then we’d go down the street, at 10th Street and surf. All. Day.”

As their priority shifted primarily to time spent in and around the water, the group would grow to include additional kindred spirits Matt Walls and the toe-haired twin brothers, Keith and Derek Brewer. The social structure was what one might expect from a rowdy bunch of competitive young men learning to challenge their environment. They were pushing each other to progress as surfers under the threat of ruthless verbal jabbing. Nobody wanted the embarrassment. If it was big, you went anyway. Intentionally wiping out hard so that everyone would laugh was better than being labeled a scaredy cat by the rest of the gang. It was surprisingly effective at making them comfortable in heavy conditions.

As skills were developed and personal styles were honed, the general excitement for surfing would stoke the dream that every surfer experiences: the dream of better waves. Their attention began to turn several blocks north of Hermosa pier to 16th Street. While the sandbars there generated higher quality surf, the break was regulated by the more experienced locals. Unless you were invited, you were surfing the pier.

Now in their teens, dedication and drive finally earned them that invitation. “There was such a good group of guys to look up to for surfing. They weren’t picking on you because you were a little kid. They were just stoked to surf with you,” says Greg about the older surfers he admired like Jeff Jones, Dennis McGivern, Greg Mc-Ewan, Johnny MacIntyre, Steve Howe, Ty Cukr, and Ronne Jones. “I really felt like I had a home at the beach.”

At 16th, a local named Howard Eddy had a video camera and would often record the surfers. Howard took the boys under his wing. He showed them how to operate the camera and how to fix it when it broke. They would take turns filming each other from the beach. Greg used it as an opportunity to improve his surfing. He would analyze the way he stood, how he turned the board, and how he held his arms. He was learning to surf for the camera. 

At the same time, but separately, Greg started entering surf contests up and down the coast. He was doing well in results and began to gain recognition as a rising talent. He was offered a wetsuit sponsorship with Body Glove.

After picking up his first suit, he was told to meet Mike Balzer at the beach in Redondo. Balzer worked with the surfing magazines and was Body Glove’s in-house photographer. This would be their first time working together. The idea was to get photos of Greg surfing in the wetsuit that could be used in marketing material.

Fourteen year old Greg pulling into a dredging closeout at Avenue C, Redondo for his first photo shoot with Mike Balzer, Redondo Beach,1988. A photo from the session would make it into Surfing Magazine. Browning and Balzer would later get a Surfer cover. Photo by Mike Balzer

There was a solid swell in the water although conditions were poor that morning. Typical South Bay, a combination of tide and swell direction was causing the waves to break along the beach in long walls all at once. Big “closeouts” don’t give a surfer much to work with. When they break in shallow water, they explode into a raging slurry of saltwater and seafloor that can pin a body to the bottom until it is ready to let go, and no sooner. Anyone skilled enough to make it down the face of a dredging beast is left with a choice: race straight for shore and try to outrun it, or face it head on and “pull in.” 

“I pulled into a closeout tube because that’s what we knew how to do growing up in Hermosa,” says Greg.

What Balzer captured that morning is an iconic image of a young man pouring his heart out. Greg has turned at the bottom of the wave to intersect its path, intentionally positioning himself so that the wall of sandy water will break over his head and swallow him completely. In contrast to the chaos that is about to consume him, he is peaceful, poised, and collected. 

To both Balzer’s and Greg’s astonishment, the photograph appeared prominently in Surfing Magazine. It was uncommon that a 14-year-old would be featured in one of the big surfing magazines on his first try.

“After that, I think I pestered him until we became friends,” says Greg.

Despite the 15 year difference in age, they each immediately recognized a kindred sense of purpose in the other. It was work, but they were having fun together. Balzer started including Greg on surf trips and photo shoots. The collaboration would span more than 30 years, defining their respective professional successes while nurturing their personal connection.

“He’s like a brother to me,” remarks Balzer, with quiet reverence.

Browning drives off the lip with everything he’s got, North side Manhattan Pier. Manhattan Beach. Photo by Mike Balzer

Through their relationship, Greg began connecting with other surfers up and down the coast and beyond. “I would introduce him to guys and he would make friends with them and then he would make friends with their friends,” says Balzer.

“I felt like my home was getting bigger,” recalls Greg of meeting more and more people and surfers.

“The Hawaii guys would come here in the summer and we would all go there in the winter,” Greg remembers. He would develop close relationships with a crew who would later all become legendary professional surfers, including the Malloy brothers, Jason and Benji Weatherly, Pat O’Connell, Taylor Knox, Rob Machado, Donovan Frankenreiter, Kalani Robb, Kelly Slater, Shane Dorian, Conan Hayes, and Todd Chesser. He slept on the couch at Jack Johnson’s house on the North Shore of Oahu one year. Another year he slept in a car parked in the driveway at the Weatherlys’ house at Pipeline. To Mrs. Weatherly’s great dismay, before sunrise that Christmas morning, Greg rolled onto the car’s horn and didn’t immediately wake up.

It was the early 1990s. Greg was 18 and he and his contemporaries were coming into their own as young professionals. They began pushing the boundaries of what could be done on a wave. Their boards were evolving to keep up with their imaginations. Shorter, thinner, and not as flat as the previous generation’s designs, the evolution made it increasingly possible to let skateboarding influence how waves were ridden.

At the time, Taylor Steele was a young, aspiring filmmaker. Steele was friends with some of that very same group of up-and-coming surfers. It wasn’t long before he and Greg became friends, first meeting at the Malloys’ house in central California. Steele was traveling with the surfers and capturing everything on video, as an insider. His footage from that era would eventually be compiled to become a stripped down, low budget, maneuver heavy, punk rock surf flick that he sold copies of, up and down the California coast, from the trunk of his car. Steele had documented a pivotal moment in the progress of surfing as it was happening. A younger generation was redefining the medium of surfing both technically and artistically. 

Greg ducks for cover on a warm day. Photo by Mike Balzer

Taylor’s film, Momentum, became wildly popular. It was unpretentious, sloppy, and unapologetically celebrated its own technical shortcomings. Most importantly, it gave a voice to the kids who felt unrepresented. It undermined the established concepts about what a surf film could be and what it meant to be a professional surfer. 

The soundtrack was built from the music they were listening to. Mostly lesser-known punk bands that were in a similarly nascent stage. While he didn’t appear in this, Steele’s first film, Greg played a critically important role in its design. It was Greg who handed Steele a cassette tape of his friend’s band, Pennywise, a move that would result in the group being featured prominently in the film. Lead singer Jim Lindbergh would later point to it as being critical to their success. In time, the evolutionary moments that Steele’s film captured and created would come to be known as the Momentum Generation.  

“At that time, if you weren’t on the [professional surfing] tour, there was really no other path until Taylor came around,” recalls Greg.

Greg didn’t enjoy the competitive aspect of professional surfing. He preferred the freedom that came with surf trips outside of the contest circuit. He found that contest results could negatively impact his friendships. Beating a friend could mean that friend wouldn’t talk to him, and that didn’t reconcile with his vision that surfing was something simple to be shared with mates. 

By working with Steele, Balzer, and other like-minded photographers and videographers, Greg would prove that a surfer could survive as a professional without having to compete. Sponsors were willing to pay for the exposure Greg was getting by appearing in the magazines and videos. The lessons he had learned growing up surfing in the South Bay were proving invaluable. He understood his role when it came to working with photographers: get in a heavy spot and make it look easy. The resulting photos would run in the magazines. He wasn’t getting rich, but his job was to go on surf trips. 

“I wasn’t trying to be like the best pro or anything like that,” he says. “I just wanted to stay close to it, stay in it, so I kept doing the next thing, the next thing, the next thing.” 

By staying close to it and continuing to do the next thing, Greg would see the world multiple times over, surfing in exotic locations. Crashing on couches, living in hotels, and staying on boats. Warm water, cold water. Big, heavy waves and small playful ones. Airports, train stations, and harbors. Most importantly, the people. Nothing is more valuable to him than his relationships. For years, it  was an amazing adventure.

Eventually though, every professional surfing career comes to an end. Some are short and some are long but one way or another, life always finds a way to catch up. The question, at some point, always becomes, what’s next?

Greg was sitting in a car park built on the dunes beneath a bluff at a place where the coastline of the entire South Bay is visible. Looking out from the cliffs at Palos Verdes to RAT, Torrance, and the Avenues, Redondo pier and King Harbor to Hermosa, Manhattan, and the old smokestacks at El Segundo, he found himself asking that very question. Now in his 20s, his girlfriend was pregnant and the clothing brand he started with friends hit some bumps and did not survive. He had moved home again after a long period of near constant travel.

Overlooking this place that had raised him, watching the waves and wondering what to do, at that moment, Ronnie Meistrell happened by. Miestrell’s family owned Body Glove and Dive N’ Surf. They had worked together when Greg was sponsored by Body Glove. Ronnie asked how things were. Greg explained and Ronnie’s response was, “You need a job.”

Greg started work at Body Glove the next day.

He was hired to help revitalize the surf team. His connections gave him a deep pool of talented athletes to recruit from. But the job didn’t quite give Greg enough to do. In the downtime, he began gravitating toward Mark Kawakami’s desk. Kawakami was the staff artist and had his hands in things that interested Greg, like photography, design, and filmmaking. The more time he spent with Mark, the more he learned and eventually, his role with the company evolved to include video production.

“To make a surf movie? I had no ambition other than I didn’t want to stop being around surfing and I didn’t know what to do…” says Greg of his trajectory.

He would reconnect with Taylor Steele and the next two decades would be spent making films like his groundbreaking and now iconic Drive Thru series while continuing to create video content for Body Glove. He was no longer surfing for a living but surfing was still his living. Through it all, he quietly and selflessly returned to the surfing community the same things it had bestowed on him when he was young and in need of direction.

Greg at work, filming as Andy Irons and crew try to right the truck Irons rolled. Australia, 2008. Photo by Mike Balzer

Working closely with the young athletes sponsored by the company, he would assume a role similar to the ones that guys like Howard Eddy and Mike Balzer had once filled for him. He nurtured young South Bay surfers like Alex Gray, who would go on to an illustrious professional career. He helped surf filmmakers like Chad Campbell and Annie Graziano get their start. He worked closely with Jamie O’Brien to help develop his infamously wild approach to surfing videos and was a significant part of the teams that helped both Carissa Moore and Tatiana Weston-Webb win their world titles.

“He’s single handedly the most important person in my life because, yes, he took me on the path of a childhood dream. He believed in a kid,” said Gray in a recent interview. “But what Greg has really done is teach me how to be a good person along the way.”

The unusual shape of his own life taught him to pay it all forward. 

“You never know who you affect in your life. You never know what person or event takes you to that next place,” Greg says. 

Ronne Jones is of particular significance to Greg. Jones ran Competition Surf and Sport, a small surf and skate shop that existed decades ago in a low-ceilinged storefront on Pacific Coast Highway at the intersection with Aviation Boulevard where the old Bob’s Big Boy once kept vigil over passersby. To have a surf shop at the top of his block was a blessing for a kid. “When I met Ronnie Jones at Competition Surfboards, he took me under his wing,” Greg says. “At that time, I want to say he was 22, going through his own personal battles. When you’re 22, you don’t know who you are. But somehow, he took on a little kid. Why? Why did he do that? Why did he take a chance?”

There is some irony, however, in his asking this question. Greg holds a simple approach: treat everyone like they’re awesome. Not just words that he tries to live by, rather, an expression of  who he is at his core. Everyone he has touched has felt the warmth. 

The Browning family at the Big Wave Challenge awards in 2016. From left, stepdad Larry, mom Dinah, son Parker, Greg Browning, son Drew” 2016. Photo by Steve Gaffney

Balzer chokes up on the other end of the phone.

There is an overwhelming sense from those in Greg’s inner circle that they are outwardly being as brave as they possibly can be. For Greg. But love is often accompanied by heartbreak and there’s no way to hide it completely.

He apologizes, and takes a moment to collect himself before saying all of the beautiful things that you say when you’re losing a dear friend.

For a time, there was some uncertainty as to what might be causing the arm weakness. After the Instagram post, Doctor Nick reached out and suggested an MRI could rule out the possibility of nerve damage. When it did, another friend suggested he see Doctor Thomas where a battery of additional tests ruled out brain tumors and strokes. From there, he was connected with a local neurologist. A full-body EKG suggested it was likely a disease called Multifocal Motor Neuropathy, which is like ALS but treatable.

For Greg, this meant five hours a day, five days a week, connected to a slow drip of white blood cells administered intravenously. 

By chance, his uncle was able to get him an appointment with a leading neurologist at Cedars Sinai. The doctor saw him immediately and suggested they go all-in on the treatments, which were never meant to be a cure but rather simply to stem further progression. But, after 16 weeks, with every week failing to provide positive results, Greg finally messaged the doctor.

He was asked to come to the office. 

In the examination room, the doctor asked Greg to open his mouth and what he saw confirmed his suspicion.

“I’m sorry, Greg. You have ALS,” he remembers being told. Just like that.

That was August 16, 2023.

 “See, you can see it,” he tells me as he shows me his tongue. The entire muscle moving in rapid, involuntary ripples, like the surface of a busy swimming pool.

We are sitting in his garage where there is a couch and a TV. A refrigerator. The collection of video tape decks that have been an essential part of his toolkit for more than two decades are neatly stacked on a workbench. Behind his desk and computer rests the electric wheelchair that will eventually become a necessity. The clothes dryer hums softly in the corner.

“Did you understand the significance of the diagnosis in that moment?”

“I still don’t understand the significance of it,” he says without hesitation, ”and I’m purposely trying to do that.”

It is not denial. The non-negotiable nature of the disease is not lost on Greg. He knows the reality is that this is a 3- to 5-year trajectory for most. Some live longer, some don’t.  “It depends on how long you’re willing to have them keep you alive,” he says.

“When I talk openly about not being here, I don’t know what that’s like for my wife, my mom, my brother, my kids. But it’s reality, and every day I can’t move more, it’s more reality for me.”

“We went to the Grand Canyon, went to Yosemite. I drove. But when I got home, I realized I had checked things off a real bucket list. I never had a bucket list. I just lived my life doing things I wanted to do. And when I finally had a bucket list, it felt like I was dying.”

Greg’s voice has finally changed. It’s moved lower, and into his chest. The dexterity of his speech is missing. It is slow, and it feels like effort is required not to stumble over his own words. That squeaky quality that was distinctly his is mostly not there anymore. Except occasionally. When he laughs.There are moments when it’s still the same. 

“I don’t need to do anything else, I love hanging out with my friends, my family. Getting a text from somebody is amazing. Watching a movie is amazing.”

 “I’m very at peace with all of this. And very thankful for this community that raised me, and, um…” his voice trails off as his thoughts become a lump in his throat. 

There is no doubting Greg’s sincerity. He means it when he says he is at peace. But that doesn’t mean he is ready to go. By nature, the disease forces a period of deep reflection and earnest contemplation. While he is grateful there is time to reconnect with so many who have been so important, doing so is a stark reminder of the things that will be left undone. 

He fumbles with his keyboard. The weakness now resides in each extremity. Without consent, his fingers have folded flat against his palms, making his hands square. He lacks the power to prevent his wrists from folding at the joint.

As he punches the keys clumsily with his pinkies, what is most striking is the undeniable grace in his approach. There is nothing remotely undignified about it. With poise and style he is pulling into the closeout. It’s what he knows how to do, having grown up in Hermosa. The disease is changing Greg’s body, but it lacks the power to change his soul. 

He looks over my shoulder and lights up. His wife, Carrie has come in. She asks what he would like to do about lunch. As they quietly discuss the simple details, I fade away along with the garage, the washer and the wheelchair, the bucket list, and the rest of the world until it’s just the two of them standing there together.

A few weeks from now, Greg will turn 50. A small group of his closest friends and family will huddle together under the tents on the back patio of Eat At Joe’s. Beneath the drizzle of a gray April morning, Monica will arrive late, wearing a Chewbacca mask, to everyone’s great amusement. Josh will fly in from Washington with his family and bring those paper hats that nobody wants to wear until everyone does. On the count of three, the group will sing “Happy Birthday” in several different keys at once; as is custom.

After carefully blowing out the tiny flames on the wax five and zero, everyone will hold their breath as Greg expresses his gratitude that they are here. And in that moment afterward, when it is quietest, Jeff will shout: “See, you’re so old that you get a birthday breakfast!” and everyone will laugh.

A few days later, Greg will be inducted into the Hermosa Surfers Walk of Fame as a “Cultural Legend.” With his big brother at his side, giving him sips of water and turning pages, Greg will take the opportunity to read a love letter, of sorts. A few intimate lines written to each of those who have been so important in his journey. It will feel like a thank you, and a goodbye.

Greg delivers his acceptance speech with big brother Jeff by his side at the Hermosa Beach Surfers Walk of Fame induction ceremony, Hermosa Beach, April 27, 2024. Photo by Joel Elliott

He will credit Kieth, Derek, and Matt for being the reason he is standing there. He will thank mom for the wooden spoons and for all of her hard work. These are the things that made this life possible. To dad, for keeping the family connected, for the skate ramps, and for teaching us not to be afraid to ask questions. Jack, you are my best friend. You and your family have taught me the importance of being kind, loving, and unafraid. Balzer, your fearless approach to life was so infectious and undeniable from the minute I met you. You gave me the best opportunities every single day we spent together. To the entire Meistrell family, thank you for believing in me and allowing me to dream. Jeff, my big brother, I learned everything from you. You were the greatest teacher and my biggest fan. Carrie, my wife, the last 10 years have been an amazing adventure. Thank you for leading the way on this crazy road ahead of us. I love you.

And, “To my boys. You guys are the best movie I ever made. I’m so proud of the men you have become. I know this life I’ve led hasn’t been ordinary. We traveled a lot, had a lot of houseguests, and you two had to share everything you owned with everybody, just like I was raised. You never complained. I tried to build you guys a village. Just remember that the village will be here for the rest of your life.”

“I know that this life, especially this last year, would have looked a lot different without all of you. My village.”

As the sun sets that evening over the voices and laughter, the sounds of that same village celebrating his accomplishments, Greg will lean in and quietly say that his muscles are cramping. I will ask how long he’s planning to stay. With a shrug and a smile, he will reply, “Until it’s over.”

The dryer buzzes and the garage is quiet.

“I always wanted to do ashes at Sixteenth Street,” he offers.

“You mean you’ve thought about this before?”

“I should have died a lot. We all should have died a lot, right? I mean, I ran into a parked car bombing a hill. I should have died in Fiji in a boat accident. There are so many times along your life that you could have died. Your friend did. You didn’t. So, is this how I go? Yeah, this is how I go.”

“I figure I’m going to go to sleep for a long time. It’s a little easier if I think about it that way,” he says with hope and a touch of uncertainty. “Maybe I’ll come back.”