Coincidentally, tonight is the night before my old friend's birthday who had passed away suddenly on Christmas Eve about five years ago. I don't have too many good friends who have passed away; there are many I've lost touch with. Memories are precious, I feel bad sometimes that I've moved on or life happens and you just forget about something neat that happened, like staring at an old photograph. I just want to remember about him a little bit longer, a friend who helped me pack boxes and move, or listen to me ramble about bad dates or breakups, introduced me to the music of Bon Jovi and the sport of hockey (watching hockey games that is) and hockey pools. A friend who wrote a software program to analyze the players stats from the regular season and choose a purely statistical estimation just for me because I didn`t official watch hockey and I really didn`t know who was who, but I just wanted to be in the hockey pool with the others at work. A friend and mentor who guided me through my first step into a career in the public service in the aerospace industry which I'm not longer a part of, but it lead me to a path I never thought of before. A friend who planned a fantastic surprise birthday party for me, and I wish that I could just do the same for him, or just to say Happy Birthday to him, again.
On a lighter note, here is my entry, word for word because it's fun to play "truth or dare" and read from any page in your dairy!!
dated 8 April
"Trevor and JF threw me a surprise birthday party! They're so smart. They just invited Anny and Alex and I for Chinese food. Trevor had a big box in his hand when I went to pick him up. Well after we took a few detours to get to the right bridge, we finally found our way. Thx to Anny and Trevor! JF listens to some pretty serious Rock & Roll. He's got the ugly Iron Maiden posters everywhere. Takeout Chinese food was ok. Hey it was their treat! We watched Women's International Hockey, Canada vs. USA. Well Canada kicks ass 3 - 2.
And when they brought out the cake, I was so surprised. 24 candles on a black forest cake! Wow. I was so happy! How did they guess that was my favorite? haha. " happy face icon.
Happy times! Well among the many interesting things we used to talk about, Trevor told me about the Cayman Islands being the place where rich people go because there were no taxes and such. He told me about Lear Jets and navigation and all that. In fact we completed one year of flight training together because of the nature of our work. All of these are unrelated facts to the uninteresting career of Geomatics Engineers lol. Anyway, that Christmas five years ago when I saw his photo splashed on the news that he was missing, my first thought was that he finally did it! He finally decided to disappear. We had previously read books and randomly talked about how people can disappear... I mean back in the day before the Internet was such a permanent digital record. I really felt deep in my heart, a bit of wishful thinking that he had just slipped away on a private jet, left the world behind and was enjoying an ice cold coffee on the beach somewhere on the other side of the world... But that`s not where they found him. Regardless, it`s not about how somebody died but how they lived, and the moments with friends that your friends may still remember. Even the children`s book he gave my baby girl was about the planet earth and navigation and where we are.
I don`t know where you are, but I know you`re in a safe place now, in the arms of Jesus. I creeped your facebook page again like most of your friends might every September or December. I just wanted to let you know that I still remember it`s your birthday, Happy Birthday Sept 21.
