Memories of Danny

We learned last night that we lost a long time friend...Dan was 35. He was P's childhood friend, and became the brother I never had when I started to date P. He was best man in our wedding.



I remember the first time I met Danny...I had heard so much about him already. P and I had been dating a few months, but were talking pretty seriously already...Danny called because he was coming back from LA to NY, as he was done with submarine duty for the M/M Academy, and wanted to know how far our university was from the airport. P pretty much ruled it out with the length of layover, and then Dan found out about me. Dan was determined to meet me once he heard that this was already pretty serious. With only about a 4.0 hour layover, he landed in ORD, came up to school, hung with us for about 2 hours, and then went back to the airport. That's how he was...he always was open, loving, outgoing, and a bit of a spur of the moment.



I remember the toast he gave at our wedding...beautiful and caring words that I never expected out of "just Danny." He was the brother I never had...he was the brother P never had. I remember Danny three way calling while we were in school, cause they figured out that the Academy only tested for long distance after 20 minutes, so he'd call and set a timer and then walk away, so our parents wouldn't yell at us about phone bills, the summer P and I were living 5 states apart. He would do that when he called us too - we'd talk the three of us for 3 hours easily, in 19 minute increments. I remember Dan calling drunk from a bar in NY, because a pop star from the 80's that he had had a crush on in the day had walked into the bar...I remember him flying out for a surprise party for P's masters. In a snowstorm, coming in 3 hours late. But he never gave up coming. I loved seeing P's and his faces that weekend, having them back together again, having a great time. I remember the fear we felt on 9/11, not knowing where he was for hours, he was a freelance consultant, we just didn't know. He had been outside the city a bit still, thankfully. I still remember his voice when I picked up the phone. I can still hear it. I remember when I went to visit him in NY, back in college, and he so naively told the bum that I wasn't his girlfriend and the bum hit on me then...and I remember the time he almost lost an arm pulling me into the subway train during rush hour. I remember the pain he was in the time I spoke to him after his kidney was removed.



Over the years, Dan came and went. It wasn't unusual to not hear from him for a year. He was a single guy living in the city. In 2005, we got a call from him, he was having surgery. Kidney cancer. He was 31 at the time. I spent a lot of time on the phone with him then, and talking to his mom who moved to NY to see him thru the kidney removal. He bounced back quickly. He worked hard at it. He didn't want P and I to come, he wanted us to visit when he was well, and I was soon to have my first surgery for endo. We were for sure he'd be out to the house within 6 months. It never happened.



P last saw him a few years ago, when he took a business trip to NY. They went our for sushi and ran up a huge bill drinking and eating and talking. Danny's Dad had just passed, and it had hit him hard. Dan was talking about moving back to FL. He was admiring of our work on the adoption (we were still waiting), he shocked us by speaking of a desire to go and find a way to adopt as a single dad. We encouraged him, but as he moved closer to moving to FL, the talk faded away, and he did too.



Once he moved, he fell off the face of the Earth. Which we expected, that was how he was. We figured he'd resurface once he was settled in, once he had a job and was back in the groove. We were in the midst of H's adoption, that was the first email that he didn't respond to.

Did he move to FL knowing the cancer was back? Knowing it was the end? Did he go back and move into a home in rural FL to die? Did he purposefully keep that from us? Dan came and went, but we always reconnected. And as soon as we did, it was like no more than a week had passed.

Our lives have a big whole in them right now, a painful dark hole. And the only thing we have to fill it is regret. Regret we didn't find some way to check on him, that we didn't send more than an email every few months. Regret that life got in the way of the big picture when we realized something was up.

We always think there's another day. Now, there are no more days. All I can hope for is that some of the religions of the world out there are right, that there's going to be a child soon born that has the soul of a loving, kind, intelligent person who was well loved in this life and that that goodness is carried on. 35 years for this world to have had him wasn't enough.

Good bye Dan, we love you.