I lost one of my best friends over the weekend. He passed away just after his 42nd birthday. He was 33 days older than me. I meet him when I was 16 years old in AP Biology. He has been there in my life, almost every day for the past 26 years. He was the best of times but he was the worse off times as well. We were both biology majors at UNM, we took classed together. We experiments on all of the uncles. He was a bridesmaid at my wedding. I gave him a wooden boken and trusted him not to hit anyone with it or to sword fight with it.
He couldn't be here when I defended my thesis but listened in on the phone while I did. He was off in Oregon when my kid was born . Most of the time we were many states apart but he was always a phone call or an txt message away. He was there chatting with me most days of my adult life. He was one of my greatest sources of inspiration, and greatest sources of frustration at the same time. He trained in Karate while we were UNM, but I never could get him to join us on the mat for Tae Kwon Do. He bragged for years that he would beat me in a sparring match until one day I said bring it, and guess who won. Not Him.
He read through my entire library, even the really trashy chick lit books. Like all of them and could discuss them. We had many hours of discussions on books like the Dresden Files or Monster Hunter International. Those were some of his favorites, but he could pretty much discuss most of the books we both read. How he could remember the plot of some obscure book and not remember me dying my hair green in high school is still a mystery that baffles me.
I could barely use my accuquilt the other day because he is the reason I have it. I made the Megalodon quilt for him and gave it to him after it did its show circuit. It is going to his nephew and nieces because I don't think I could look at it again with out crying I am not sure what I will do with out him. He was the photographer for many of my quilts and it was his photography that helped me get into many of the shows. He was the voice telling me to try something new when my self doubt was getting the best of me. He expanded my horizons and challenged me to try new things with my art all of the time. He designed me a website that was so ugly that I cried. But he was always there. Now that he isn't, I am lost.
There are Hundreds of photos that we shared back and forth, all of them are parts of conversations and jokes and time we spent together. These are some of them that I had on my phone. Most of them don't include either of us. There are alot of my dog. He loved my dog and pictures of my dog.