two old friends died recently.
i met them both in undergrad. we were in the music program together and lived at the same residence. we took the same classes, ate breakfast and lunch and dinner together for years. we studied together. we practiced together. we partied together. we grew up together.
rob was a piano major and in the music education program with me. i loved watching him play. many evenings i adjusted my practice schedule so it could match with his, and would go find him and just quietly watch him play scales, or work through a piece, and we could walk home together. some of my favourite memories of rob are of us sitting together and just laughing about anything. for hours. we laughed a lot, almost always about how annoying things were. his laugh was loud and iconic. from the gut. i loved making rob laugh.
the last time i saw rob was near the parking lot at spadina station, in 2011 i think. he was walking with a friend, and i was with my boyfriend and we were just about to move to berlin. i was so excited to tell him about it because he was so good at languages, and we had practiced german together at school. he was really happy for me, and i told him that he should come visit. we shared a hug and said goodbye and then life happened and we lost touch.
i am so sad that he’s gone. i don’t even have any photos of him or of us together. he lives in my memory.
stuart was also in my year of the music program, and he lived across the hall from me. so it was basically like we lived together. he was 17 when he started undergrad - a baby - but he always felt like a big brother. he played the trombone and i played the euphonium, so we were low brass buddies, which is a very specific type of kinship.
i’ve never met anyone like stuart. he was so determined and focused on becoming a better player, and he worked incredibly hard at it. so hard that he actually sprained a muscle in his face and had to stop playing. that was tragic. but he pivoted and figured out how to stay in music, even if he couldn’t play like he used to. i was so proud of him for that.
he taught me about star trek and about christian lindberg. i truly would have failed every year of music theory if it weren’t for stuart. he taught me how to play the trombone and didn’t even get upset at me when i gave up trying. i can still hear his voice, screaming at his opponents, playing smash bros on the N64 i brought to our common room. i’ve never seen someone chug a beer faster. he gave the best hugs. he unapologetically loved high school musical. he never wore inclement weather appropriate clothing - always a hoodie and like, leather shoes.
when i went to live in vancouver the summer after first year, i met stuart in calgary at the stampede with a couple of his friends, and we had one of those wild evenings that turns into the next day. when i drove across the country after we graduated, i stayed with him in canmore. we went on a beautiful hike, and took one of my favourite photos of us. he wore the hoodie and the leather shoes. when i moved to new york, he was in town for a conference and we caught up over drinks. i was so happy to see him becuase i was new to the city and didn’t know anybody, and having plans was a big deal for me. especially with someone i hadn’t seen in so long.
that was the last time i saw stuart. and it was like old times! he was the kind of friend you could not see for a few years and just pick right back up where you left off. even if your lives took you in different directions, the love was always there. we messaged back and forth a couple years ago about meeting up in toronto, but for some reason or another it never happened.
i have whole albums of photos dedicated specifically to stuart. he was always there. one of my dearest friends. i really really loved him.
i wish i knew he was struggling. i wish i reached out during the pandemic. i wish i didn’t stop using facebook, which is where most of our conversations took place after i moved away, or that we exchanged phone numbers. i can’t believe we never exchanged phone numbers.
i’m writing this because i don’t know what to do with these feelings, really. grieving people you lost touch with is a strange thing. especially people who were such an important part of your life during such a formative time, people you never expected to never see again. this is what trips me up the most.
a part of me feels guilty for being so sad about it, because we hadn’t spoken in so long. like, what gives me the right to feel this way? and i guess the other parts of me just feel deep, deep sorrow. that my friends were hurting and that i didn’t know, that they died the way they died. that i’ll never see them again. never laugh with them again. that they’ll never know how much i thought about them, and how much i loved them both. how important they were to me, and to everyone else who was friends with them too.
i just wish there was more time.