The Gathering

Losing a friend who was the lynch pin of a strong group is extra hard when your group is scattered across many states. For the last week our gang has, called, texted, sent photos, written stories, which we emailed each other, all in preparation for tomorrow’s service but mostly because we all were in disbelief that Hugh was gone.

Today we drove and flew and Ubered to all finally be in the same place just to finally have one big group hug. We are a group that embraced each other in the strongest possible way 43 years ago and created a lifetime of stories and a dictionary of our own language in a short period of time. We are still telling those stories and speaking our own special language, but without our chief linguist.

Suzanne had a standard way of always saying our names, Dana, Doug, Hugh and Dave. She is having a hard time reordering the group as we are incomplete without Hugh.

As underwater as we all feel without him, today was a wonderful day. We shared so many stories, laughing until I needed to change my underpants and Doug felt like he had done a thousand push ups. We have not cried as a group, but we have poured out our heartfelt love.

I think tomorrow is going to be extra hard, but so memorable and will be added to the litany of stories we share over and over again.

I am happy to be with my tribe. It may not be whole, but we are all safe together. It looks like we are having so much fun in the pictures, but our hearts are all broken. We are keeping Hugh alive with us by doing exactly what we have always done when we are together. Telling stories, laughing, falling into antics that turn into new stories and sharing a group love that is magical.

We are sad that some of our other close friends are not here with us. And just know we talked about you and your stories too.

Hugh often would miss gatherings we had over the years, so for now I feel like this is just one he is missing. I might have to believe that for the rest of my life and keep him live through our shared stories.