All the things said about you that still break my heart

It is gray and rainy today, the fog so thick visibility barely past our property. I can see out the front window as I write, the trees ghostly against air that looks like cotton batting. Not long ago I talked about you without a single tremor in my voice; I mentioned your name a few times over the course of the week, never crying once. Maybe it’s the weather, the barometric pressure dropping, that I suddenly feel as gray inside as out.

Scrolling through my camera I came across a picture of you, taken on your last birthday, the one you died only months after, knowing this would likely be the case though you were staying positive and never losing hope to eke out another year at least. What was that like for you, I wonder, celebrating your last birthday, and knowing it. It jolts my heart seeing that picture. - how glad I am that you spent that day with your best friends and brother. How bittersweet that must have been, to be surrounded by so much desperate love. Your arm in a sling because the cancer was so advanced you had lost use of it for a few months by then.

I started trying to count the number of days between your birthday, and the day you drew your last breath. I went to my calendar where I put a goodbye message to you on the day you died, with a link. I clicked the link and went to the tributes page on the website of the funeral home that held your service, a place I still consider the saddest place in the world, a place where I was reunited with all our old friends. Their shock at seeing me - we all burst into tears and held each other’s arms, we didn’t hide our faces in hugs, we faced each other with eyes streaming, and all those eyes were filled with so much loss, so bereft. You were celebrated, yes, but you were grieved so hard by so many.

So maybe it’s the weather but reading the tributes especially those from people we knew, people that are still in my life, forever tethered together by this terrible loss that is your death - reading those tributes just broke my heart all over again. Every word written about you is true. It’s rare to read such a chorus of tenderness, the comments about your kindness and generosity so consistent it breaks me down all over again, that you, one of the best people anyone has ever known, can be gone.

The comments paid tribute to how much fun you were, something you’d really like. It is a direct reflection of your generous spirit. You taught me early how to prize experience - we did so many awesome things with so many awesome people. Your embrace of life was quiet but consistent, you really knew how to live in the moment.

At your funeral there was a slideshow playing on a loop, most of the pictures from the last decade of your life, our nineteen years together reduced to a single brief glimpse of us in Telluride. Remember how we didn’t understand what mountain biking was, really, and at the bike rental place almost eschewed helmets. Do we really need these, you asked. Well I wouldn’t go without one, said the very capable looking clerk. Thank God we rented them. I often recall the woman we saw biking serenely up the steep winding mountain road, a kid and groceries on the back, and not an electric bike either.

“She’s not even breaking a sweat,” you whispered as she passed.

But the funeral home remembrances do include me, and mention how much fun we all had.

One of the most fun and truly wonderful memories we have were times spent with C in Austin, Brazil and Australia where we enjoyed his generous friendship, sharp, funny wit, and genuine curiosity in people and places world-wide. He was a true friend, a good listener, always kind and caring. He had a strong, brilliant mind, but was modest in every way. We loved him very much.

Words can't express how sad I feel to hear this news of C’s passing. I have wonderful memories of him as a smart, kind, funny, open minded man. He was generous and good.

He was one of the good guys and well respected. Rest in peace.

You were just "solid", the kind of person that is good both inside and out. The world needs more like you.

We had lots of great fun and funny times together in Houston, and while he and Sandra lived in Austin, and then San Francisco.

The world is a better place for having Clint in it. He was a good person and friend to everyone that knew him. I will miss him and will never forget him and the fun times we had.

Hearts are breaking all over the world. Clint had a great intelligence and an innate kindness felt by anyone who spent time with him. He was intrepid and entrepreneurial and adventurous, a true independent thinker, but one who always left room for other perspectives. He had a generous way of making everyone feel respected, and was a good friend to all. He was an admirable man in every regard, I was profoundly lucky to travel so much of my life and the world with him, and I will miss him every day of my life. Goodbye my dear.

That last one was from me.

It was 103 days. That’s how long you lasted into your last year. Just about one season. About the same amount of time as some bird migrations. Chat GPT says migration is an adaptive behavior that allows birds to maximize their chances of survival to escape harsh conditions. It’s a way to think of your death that is less painful - you aren’t gone, just migrated to a more favorable climate, one without pain, with lots of future, and fun.