Garry was a good friend of mine. Sometimes, when I would be feeling quite sad, I would look over at Garry, and he would say some sacred and profane things, share a poem or two. There's a lot to be said about a guy like Garry. He loved Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, and he was the kind of person they'd sing a song about. He looked kind of like a mobster.
I think in a world as complicated as this one, Garry made sense. He had a lot of important words of wisdom, and he liked sharing them, just like he liked holding out a snot filled napkin for me to take whenever I was distracted by whatever chatter was in the skull that day.
I don't think I could have necessarily made it through life the same had I not met Garry. I feel sorry, deeply sorry, for everyone who didn't get the chance to meet him: it was kind of like winning the lottery to meet a person like Garry, let alone have stories to share.
He would walk me to my car late at night, and never did it feel unsafe. That's an extreme kind of blessing. The kind of the thing that, if you aren't careful, you can take for granted: Garry was a rare sort of good guy.
Garry was always going on about how perfect the world was, even though he also thought of it as deeply broken. If people thought more like Garry, I would tell myself in moments of his ramblings, then the world might be a pretty decent place.
Gainesville in Garry's time was the stuff of legends. Garry himself, a bit like a myth. If I hadn't met him, I'd hardly believe him. And even having met him, I still wonder if he was just some sort of dream I dreamt. If he was merely a dream, I'm grateful for having had it.
Garry really cared about the trees, and I hope in his next life they offer him the same comfort and protection he gave so readily.
