In Memoriam

On June 8th, 2013, the ashes of Terrea Lea, B.J. Moore and Suzanne Tjulander were scattered at sea in a private ceremony attended by a group of their family and friends.

Due to a surprisingly awful case of seasickness, I was unable to speak at the ceremony, so I'm exercising webmaster's privilege to say here what I wanted to say then and there:

Terrea, BJ, Sue and Stacey Lubell gave me a place to be when I couldn't fit in anywhere else. They offered me friendship when I'd given up on ever having friends. I wasn't the only one. A number of us came to them confused, battered, bullied and damaged. They put up with us, our anger and social fumbling, gaffes and mistakes as we tried to sort out our lives and relationships. They gave us a place to heal and a reason. We are all the better for having known them.

We all have stories to tell about our times together, of parties and celebrations and jokes and occasional tragedies and disasters when we did what we could to support each other. It was they who made it all possible and, if I can pay it forward by doing even a tenth as much good for a hundredth as many people, I will not count my life wasted.