Dear EBurn,
It’s both real and really confusing to me that it’s been four years without you here. And I miss all the present and future EBurn52003 that we don’t get to have.
I know that you would still have one billion animals, and that at any moment, in any parking lot, rescue another. The space you had in your heart for suffering creatures of all kinds was unparalleled.
I know that you would have married Doug, and that we would have had the chance to go see in person that wild Colorado mountaintop sunset from those pictures you found, and I would have been SO EXCITED to be part of it, and I know you would have had a floaty dreamy dress and I can feel this day and I wish we had the memory, because it’s so beautiful, and you envisioned it, so, like everything you set out to do, it was going to happen. (Who passes the bar in multiple states on the first try? EBurn does, then acts casual about it.)
I know that we would have completed our journey to hug General Sherman, driving too fast, blasting BSpears and Avril and the entire hip-hop catalog from the Probe years, red and blue.
And I know that you would have been the rock you were to me in March 2006 in February 2020. I know that we would still be best friends, touch-trees, places of origin and knowing before knowing.
You had more daring in your fingernail on any given day than I ever had in my whole body in my whole life—you forgave me that, too.
I don’t really have memories before our friendship as extra small blonde people eating cereal after Mrs. Tibbett’s kindergarten class. Who gets to have a true friendship like yours for 27 years? Well, somehow I did. Jackpot.
You always told me the truth, but you never judged me (even when I probably/definitely deserved to be judged).
I’ve thought of you every day this year, and wondered how scared we all would have been for your safety. Covid would have been unbelievably dangerous for you, and yet I know that somehow you would have found a way to carry on through it and lead with grace. In spite of everything you had to endure just to be alive, you always cared about the other person’s tragedy, suffering, fear, joy. Your life was full of miracles that you manifested on purpose. You were the best at that. What weren’t you good at? No one knows.
I love you EBurn, and I’ll miss you forever. There’s nobody like you in the whole universe, and there won’t be. Your friendship changed me. I will always wish you were here.
en paix et amour,
L-train
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