Sent to Terri November 2010 after I discovered too late of Brian’s passing
“My great and heartfelt condolences (and tears) Terrie, I’m so terribly, terribly sorry for your loss. Brian was the one true friend I had through all my years of high school during the difficult transition between being an insecure, self-absorbed, emotionally dysfunctional teenager to becoming an adult. Brian and I had years of laughing, crying, partying, skiing together and discovering what girls, relationships, and women were all about. I remember when he and I buried his first dog tequila in Fish Creek Park together. I wept like a baby, but Brian couldn’t shed a tear. I hope that those many years with you helped him to learn to laugh, love, and cry. He found the loving and crying part of life very hard when I knew him. He walked with me through times of great pain and was a shoulder to cry on when I ended my relationship with one of the only two women I ever loved in my entire life. When we both walked through those years without having a real family we became family for each other. Both of us being Ukrainian and lonely, made it really easy. He held up a mirror when I was being an idiot but never rejected me for it. When he saw the hypocrisy in my family, he gently and lovingly let me know that there was a better way to do things. After the loss of his mother, I’m not sure how he really knew how to love, but in his own way (when I knew him) he showed loved by just accepting me the way I was.
I know the loss of a childhood friend could never match your pain and sorrow, but can honestly say I’ll miss him and the world is a little darker with his passing. I’ll always carry his memory in my heart, and I’m a better person for having known him. If we continue to hold his memory in our heart part of him is never really gone. I always wanted to get together with Brian and celebrate the joys and losses of those early years but always put it off because I wanted to be more successful in business, and impress him with a life well lived while wanting him to be proud of me, as we had a little competition going as to who would do better, and always wanted to be a little bit better before I met with him again, but really blew it, didn’t I? Unfortunately meeting Brian won’t be possible now, and I’ll always regret that. I’ve lost and missed a friend by not reconnecting with him when I still could have. I know a much greater part of your life has been lost with his passing, but somehow a small part of mine has too. I’m richer for having known him, and much poorer for not connecting with him sooner.
Regards, regrets, and my greatest heartfelt sympathy”
