I was playing an online video game. The same one I always play. Talking to fellow players. We were discussing how easy modern technologies make it to communicate. Cross country, even world wide. The thought of my friend Brad popped in my brain. I hadn't seen him in 20? years. I googled....and I never expected to come across this sad information. Sorry to everyone on this loss.

Empty-handed I entered the world

Barefoot I leave it.

My coming, my going --

Two simple happenings

That got entangled.

I was driving this morning, running some errands and listening to some music when a song came on my iPod that Brad and I both liked and that he had given me on a CD sometime within the last year or so. It made me think of him and in the past whenever I would hear or see things that reminded me of him or times we had shared together, I would give him a call and say, "hey! I was listening to this song....." and we'd talk about how awesome it was or something.

The Next Place by Warren Hanson

The next place that I go
will be as peaceful and familiar
as a sleepy summer Sunday
and a sweet, untroubled mind.

And yet….it won’t be anything like any place I’ve ever been…
or seen…or dreamed of
in the place I leave behind.

I won’t know where I’m going,
and I won’t know where I’ve been
as I tumble through the always
and look back toward the when.

I’ll glide beyond the rainbows.
I’ll drift above the sky.
I’ll fly into the wonder,
without ever wondering why.

I want to thank you for your post. It seems as though you have given everybody else the green light to share their thoughts and hopefully get some of it out.  It is like permission has been given to vent and release a little. 

Yesterday, I sat still and wept over you. There were no words, only tears. The pain I was in was palpable. And the one person I wanted to say it to, you, weren't there.

I wanted things to work out between us. I wanted to you to get your shit together before it was too late. I thought that you would. Because I believed in you. I guess it was a false sense of hope. . .

I feel like since Brad has been gone I have been in a funk. Haha... thats hilarious, of course I have been in a funk we've all been in a funk. I don't want to call it a depression because its not always sad. My happiest time was when I was in California but having to push back my move out there didn't help anything. So I have begun overhauling my life. I chopped half my hair off. I got a new job.... no its not in a restaraunt. I gave birth to a baby girl... puppy... who is the thing that keeps me going.

Brad,

I have opened this page so many times, to post something, and I never got anything typed. I have this overwhelming need to talk, to type, to write about Brad. I just have not had one "organized" thought to write. So I don't write. But yesterday I spent a few hours with Kate and we just talked. And we mostly talked about Brad. It is really nice to have somebody who I can just talk to about Brad. I decided the heck with it, I have no one organized thought, I am just posting to let some of it out.

The other day as I was walking through Trader Joe's, I was stopped in my tracks and started weeping because this song came over their music systerm. Brad LOVED this song.

Years ago, there was a period when my car had no cassette player, and all we listened to was the oldies station. Brad would get SO excited when this song came on. He would never buy it because he said it would ruin the excitement of the song. I totally understand that. It was always a treat when we got to hear it - like a little extra magic in the day.