Yesterday would have been Chris’s 25th birthday. It is hard to believe that he has been gone since May and the world has kept spinning without any real pause in time. Jane & I sat at his memorial site this weekend & thanked him for being such an amazing guy. I’m sure he appreciated that we were a few drinks deep & trying frantically to light his candles without any success.
I try my hardest to keep the feeling he gave me with me every single day & to be a better person. On our way home we ran into two guys who were sloppy messes - one was bleeding from the forehead and they were about to get in their car and drive home. I don’t know why, but I hugged him so hard & asked him to please take a cab. Within one minute a cab pulled up & they got in instead of driving. In my heart I believe Chris had something to do with it - and that maybe this one random interaction with two complete strangers at a strange hour might have potentially saved their lives or someone else’s. Chris told me once how his dad always stressed to never drive home after drinking. I think he would have been proud. I see more & more with each passing moment how we all need to be a little more careful with one another - a little more willing to look out for each other & for ourselves.
Some of mine & Chris’s best conversations were about music. Deer Tick’s entire album that was released this year reminds me of him & was one of the few things that gave me perspective on the situation. I am grateful from my soul down to the soles of my feet for music’s ability to provide comfort & narrate some small piece of our lives.
The last line in “The Sad Sun” - “and the few who care, what have they accomplished right here?” I think when someone we admire so much is lost to us it makes us want to be better all around & to live a little piece of each day for them - to accomplish something greater with our own lives than what we first had in mind.
