I Wish I Could Write Pretty

I wish I could write pretty. I want to capture the essence of you and put it into organized words that make sense. I want to write you a beautiful and powerful tribute and tell everyone how much you meant to me. I want to tell the world, which is heralding you as a hero, how I knew you first. And I know if you were here, you would just write this for me. You would take a huge abstract concept, like memories of you, break it down into specific tangible qualities. Then you would organize it into a neat, nice, little package of words. Then you would file this tribute away somewhere, maybe next to some other organized thing of yours, like your photo albums or your books, or your zip ties in your toolbox.

 I first met you in the spring of 1993 in the back of Shane Duncans truck. I sat right next to you. The most solid shoulder ever, touched my boney little arm, and that first touch of you forever changed me. My life got better in a nanosecond.  You wore ridiculous tight white jeans that night, which you denied ever owning, even a month before you died. You held my underaged beer while I ran into the convenient store in Moab to buy candy, a more age appropriate treat. I think you would agree that you, at the time, were a grown-up and I was still a child. You were my first grown-up.  You just sort of came into my life and in an instant made things more fair and just and safe. You were a hero then, 20 years ago. You saved my life long before you saved the 30 diplomats at the American Consulate in Libya last month. You loved me, when no one else did, and made me feel like I was worth your love. And I loved you right back.

I want my silly little anecdotal stories of you and me together to be riveting. But they aren't really. They are just slices of my little life with a very big friend. You, paddling the Daily with me, at high water for example.  You and me Swimming at the swimming hole behind the South Circle K with Amy and my love. You and me biking around Moab, you were right behind me. You wanted me to show you the coolest places in Moab. I tried my hardest to stay in front, but you set such a fast pace.  You always did that. Then there were the teal green roller blades that I just couldn't get on board with. They were too gay even back then. But you always said you were a lesbian trapped in a mans body. I pretended that I couldn't play guitar so that you would teach me. I loved when you taught me.  We played guitars together all night, Angel from Montgomery and The Indigo Girls songs. You and me on a warm summer night on the bug hut porch. We climbed together on the Potash Road a dozen times or more. I remember the "Nervous In Suburbia" climb in particular. There was a bomber hold halfway up the climb, but it was just out of reach, so you sort of had to levitate up and will yourself to grab it. Then there it was, big as life, perfect, fist full of sandstone. I got to the top at dark and then was too afraid to set up the rappel. So you lowered me down and climbed it again in the dark to retrieve your pro. I remember hopping the fence at the Ramada Inn late night to poach the hot tub with you.  I hopped the fence first to show you how scrappy I was, and opened the gate for your girlfriend who came to visit you in Moab. You and your lady soaked in the hot tub while I blew off my crazy jealously and swam and swam and swam in the pool. The dives and flips and perfect freestyle (if I do say so myself, perfect) were for your benefit. I was just a girl G, but I wanted to be your girl and what did the lady in the hot tub have that I didn't? And then there was game night at my house, but we had no board games. We found, when we went to Walker Drug, that the Monopoly game cost more than all four of us had put together. So, Amy and I switched the price tag on the Monopoly box with that of a lesser item and bought the game for a very discounted price. You were shocked but I knew you sort of loved it too. You taught me to drive the "dirge". "Double clutch", you said and flipped over the passenger side sun visor. "The directions are right here if you get confused". And then there was the moonlit hike on Slickrock with your star gazers' book and red flashlight. We got all learned-up.  I remember scouting Big Drop Three with a full S Rig at low water, you were laughing and said, "I just don't think it's ganna fit". It fit fine. You had a perfect run. You always did. But you sort of made a career out of making big things fit into small places. You, big huge man, fit so tightly into my little arrhythmic heart.

 My words aren't pretty and they don't fit in this space and you are not here to organize them and make them fit. You have  left this enormous hole in all of our hearts where our love and admiration for you and you yourself once filled. And now it's just empty space and a jumble of ugly words like "dead" and "jealousy", "consulate" and "Libya".

You left the river. It was not challenging for you like it was for me. The Navy made those solid shoulder even stronger. And we picked up wherever and whenever we could. So many memories: you sitting shotgun in Tim's truck, asking me if you should back the trailer for me. I scolded you for it. I could barely reach the pedals of my husband's truck, but I could back a trailer like a champ. You told me once that I wouldn't be able to change a motor out if I blew a lower unit in the Big Drops. I yelled at you again, "Neither could you!". You used to like to strangle/hug me. You liked to play rough and I liked when you played like that, but I never got to tell you. I can still hear your voice on the phone a week before you died, "I love you so much Annie, love you so much". I knew when I hung up the phone that those would be the last words I would ever hear you speak.

 I don't want to be your girl anymore Glen. I found my love, he was with me the whole time. And, I loved loved loved the friendship that defined us: you and me, G.  You grew me up.

 I remember  you taking my hand and helping me out of my own car when I was 8 months pregnant and you said in a rare soft voice, "You're gonna be a little mama". And I remember you stark naked doing power yoga at the falls in Dark Canyon and I tried to steal your clothes. But the SEALs taught you to be quicker than me and you retrieved your clothes and put them on before I even had a chance to sneak a peak of you. You told me how much you loved Dark Canyon and when you died you wanted your ashes scattered there. But you weren't supposed to die last month. Maybe you didn't. God, please tell me you didn't die. You had the most organized garage I have ever seen in my life. The sheer magnitude of stuff you possessed, and fit into  a neat little one car package, was outstanding. We played scrabble late night . You taught me to slice mangos. You used to throw the frisbee to me on the beach over and over and I wouldn't let you stop. I was like a golden retriever and never tired of frisbee. You humored me way longer then was fun for you. We drank margaritas late at the Baja beach house and Z came in the back door and said "You guys gotta check this out." We filed outside and witnessed the white caps on the waves glowing in the dark, no moon.  You said "phosphorescence". We sailed under the Coronado Bridge. You called me once from a satellite phone half the globe away, and said that you would catch the next plane home because my world had fallen apart and you wanted to come put the pieces back together for me. Could you please put the pieces back together now? I remember you standing in the back of the crowd at my surprise 40th b-day party which you flew in for and apparently helped plan. You showed, my son, Theo how to use a sharp knife. You drove me around in my car with other Annie cause I was too drunk to drive and we sang at the top of our lungs Pat Benatar's, "We Belong". You came to stay in Salt Lake for weeks in a row 'cause it hadn't worked out with your girl, and the economy had tanked while you were three houses long, and you had left the SEALs and you were not certain of your future, and you came home to your Utah friends to remind you of the hero who lived in you... 

I want more than to fit all these memories in one tribute to you.  I want you to stay alive in these memories and I want to make more. I want all these memories in one central place so that I won't forget any of them. But there are too many to catalog. I want to  show the world that I knew you, as a hero, before they did. Now everyone knows with your beautiful face plastered all over the newspapers and magazines and the TV. Like that matters. But fuck all of this, like a million points in time, like all these memories, like you and me it does matter. My life with you wasn't done. 

 I just never thought you would die Glen. I thought you walked on water. You told me not to worry about you because you had the "luck of the Irish". You lived larger than life. And I guess that's it.  You were too big for this life, you just couldn't fit all that is you here, in the tiny space of this little life we are all left living. Without you.