In Memory of Paul Ryder

The world has lost a great man.

This photo is from April 18, 2022. My right arm is around the sturdy shoulders of Paul Ryder. We had known each other since the third Monday in April of 2007.

And now he is gone.

How does one weep over hearing the news that a person with whom less than twenty total days together were shared has perished? Quite easily, apparently.

Was it the memory of Paul delivering a celebratory beer after my first Boston finish?

Or the constant recollections of how our favorite day of the year turned into the worst day of our lives on April 15, 2013?

Was it our annual reunion embrace before setting up the VIP Tent at 4AM in Copley Square just past the finish line?

Could it have been the times we comforted runners and bomb-blast survivors or were fortunate enough to hang out with true champions like Jack Fultz, Joan Benoit, Meb Keflezighi, Bill Rodgers, Joshua Cassidy, Team Hoyt, Matt Brown, and many others?

Was it the genuineness of his smile and the warmth of his friendly eyes?

All of this and more, but what I’ll never forget—and think fondly of the most—was the way he made me feel every year, for fifteen straight years, on Patriots’ Day.

RIP.