This isn’t enough, but it’s what I have right now.

When I was 30 years old, I was offered a promotion at work. The problem was I needed a drivers license, something I had become irrationally afraid to get. Dan spent countless hours teaching me to drive, his patent mixture of kindness and mockery alleviating the fears that had become so ingrained. He drove me there and I took the test, passing on the first try.

This past week has been hell. The days leading up to finding out, I was filled with dread. I was convincing myself he was just ignoring us because he felt antisocial, something he did quite often. I kept opening messenger, expecting to hear from him. To tell us to stop being stupid. To say of course he was fine. I still keep looking, convinced this is all a bad dream.

On Saturday, we got together to celebrate his life. It was a gathering of people who loved him, so large and with so many people traveling from out of town…he would have absolutely hated it. Right before we got there, my friend and I got a rental car stuck in the snow. My first instinct was to call him. That he would laugh and then come fix it. Because that’s who he was. He so often didn’t see his own worth, but those of us who knew him know how incredible he was. A mix of contradictions. Kind and ornery. Sincere and sarcastic. Thoughtful and harsh. Spending time with people who I knew and people who I had only heard the names of over the last 20 years was overwhelming. Realizing how much or how little he shared about himself with each of us was humbling. Dan went skydiving?? That can’t be true!

I have a stack of TBR books from him, mailed to me in the 7 years since I left Pittsburgh, often shipped in an Amazon box with no note or explanation, just something he thought I would like. Sci-fi, fantasy, political, historical, spanning genres. I have a few unwatched, gifted rifftrax episodes in my queue. I keep thinking of things to share with him - new MST3K episodes, a new Dresden book. Things we won’t get to talk about. He refused to let anyone play the Buffy RPG until I was there. And we never got a chance to play.

A friendship that spanned distance and decades, it was never going to be long enough. Reach out to those in your life and tell them you love them. Someday I will be able to think about this without crying. Today is not that day.