It literally never occurred to me once in my life that I would ever eulogize Graham.
I’ve spent the last week, or a little less, in Paducah, Kentucky. In Ballard County, Kentucky. I hesitate to call them “home”. I’ve spent more time living in New Mexico now than Kentucky. I spent the last five days in sort of a bemused daze, seeing sights I haven’t seen in almost fifteen years, going places I haven’t been in almost fifteen years.
I was in town for the death of my grandmother, who I hadn’t seen in, again, almost fifteen years. She was about 80 then and smart as a whip, legitimately. We say that about the elderly sometimes but she was really at that level, not having lost a step. Things really fell apart in the last five or so. But she made it to almost 96. I had been expecting it for a while. I got the call the day after my birthday.
It was another two days after that before we had concrete enough plans to consider travel arrangements. That was January 16th. Graham’s birthday. I only had Steam left as a way to get a hold of him so I went to send him a message both to with him happy birthday and to see about catching up with him.
And that’s how I found out he’d been gone for nine or ten months already. Happy birthday.
I was able to get the details about what happened from a good samaritan on Reddit that knew him from work. They don’t really bear repeating. They break my heart for everyone involved. It hit me far, far harder than losing my grandmother. It turned the trip from something tolerable if, for no other reason, to eat at some restaurants I hadn’t been to since 2010, into something I didn’t know if I could do.
Let’s get to the point.
For several years of my life, the most active years of this website in particular, Graham was more important to me than most of my family. He was a friend when I needed one maybe the most I ever have in my life. He was my best friend.
I was never his.
I harbored no illusions about that and had no hard feelings because of it. But the facts were what they were and that really didn’t mean much to me. I loved him as the older brother I never had.
I managed to run into him completely out of the blue for the last time with my then-fiancee. At Tribeca, of course. Tribeca’s gone now, and so is he. The town is equal parts changed and unchangeable. I am equal parts changed and unchangeable. I’m alive.
That’s at least partly his doing.
All I feel like I can do at this point is keep it up.
When I’m in better spirits I’ll post more about the site, TLoM, and just how exactly I managed to get .com back.