Last night we had a memorial gathering for my friend Ben at a couple friends' house. I'd organized it with one of my old roommates before I'd taken off for Vancouver, and then beyond making a Facebook event and trying to spread the word as best we could, we hadn't planned for anything else. People baked things, and we listened to Ben's old band, and I filled people in on his last few months, the circumstances of his death (he'd been really ill, dealing with psychotic episodes, etc), and what had gone down at the service in Vancouver. It was all really well attended, and people shared stories and laughed and drank together, and I met a lot of his friends who I'd only ever seen occasionally around campus before. It wasn't an especially sombre evening, though there were moments of that, and overall I just feel that we did him pretty proud.
Talked with a few people about trying to get a booklet printed up, of drawings and writings and things which he'd made. Thankful that this sort of project is something others are interested in.
So, yeah, a pretty beautiful night, as these things go. I'm super grateful.