It is time to take a moment to remember.

I remember his laugh, how he always smiled. He was one of those people who could lighten the mood in any room.

I remember how he gave the best long hugs. He would always squeeze me extra hard. His hair always smelled really good. He had long curls that I like to wrap around my fingers like little springs. I would wind it around my finger when we would talk, wrap it and unwrap it. Perfect little spirals.

He loved music. He was one of the most talented bass players I have ever met.

He came to every show I ever played and stood right in front of me. He would make faces and make me laugh. Even on the nights he had to work, he still would steal away long enough to come see me if I had a show. He would run in long enough for me to see him and then he would wave and whisk himself away as quickly as he had arrived.

He loved Marvin the Martian.

He was wearing a Mr. Bubbles shirt the last time I saw him.
I hugged him extra long that night. I didn’t want to let him go.
I drove away, and a few minutes later turned around again and went looking for him. I was not sure why. I went into the empty club and asked the guy sweeping up if he had seen him. The guy looked confused and told me they had all left a while ago. When he told me that, it felt like a punch in the gut.

I stood there in the empty band room where we had just played. I looked around at all of the paper and remnants of the night all over the sticky floor.
I could not figure out what I was doing there, something else was driving me, but I didn’t know what. All I knew was that I needed to see him.

I shook my weird feeling off the best I could and headed home.
I was going to see him the next evening at a party. There was no reason to be acting like I was not going to see him again.
That night I thought about him on the drive home. I relived every moment we had ever spent together in my head. I remember asking myself why I was suddenly so obsessed with the subject, but I really could not think about anything else.

The next day he called me early to confirm that I was going to the party. I told him I was getting a sitter and I was going to be there for sure.
About an hour before I was supposed to leave, I stood up and I crumpled to the floor. It felt like someone had taken a knife and started twisting in my back. I literally could not move. It hurt too much. The only thing I could do was lay on the floor, flat on my back. I called him and told him I wasn’t going to make it. He was bummed, but he understood. He said he would call me the next day and tell me about all of the fun I missed.
-------------------------------------------
My phone rang again at 6AM the next morning. It was my friend Jamie. She said there had been an accident. I asked her what hospital I needed to go visit them at. She said I didn’t understand. She said he was gone, they were all gone they didn’t live through the night, none of them. I told her she was lying and I hung up. I sat there for a long time trying to absorb what just happened.

I didn’t really believe it until I was standing by his casket wrapping his hair around my finger again. I stood there winding it up and unwinding it, waiting for him to open his eyes, or to look like him, or to look real at all.
Eventually the funeral director came up and gently took my arm and asked me if he could help me to my seat.

I kissed the cold marble that was now his forehead and whispered “Goodnight.”



For John David