Gary Baxter: You Were More Than Just A Best Man: A Tribute To Gary Baxter

We were young, and we were searching. We both wanted a new start, a new beginning. We didn’t know what we were searching for, but we found each other when our journeys brought us to the same city. Both had decided upon this destination individually, and without the knowledge that the other would be there. Who knew that I would meet my first blood brother.

In my eyes, you were strikingly handsome, and everything I wanted to be. It seemed you had it all together, but over time I realized that you were just as scared as I. Even though I knew you were afraid, it appeared to me that you still had it all together. I knew that it was just a facade, but what an illusion you would cast. Sometimes, my love was so great for you that I wondered if we were more than just friends, but in my fear I never said a word. You were my brother, my confidante, my strength, and my tower, and I knew I did not want to lose that.

The years began to swirl around us as we twirled through holidays, birthdays, vacations, salons, and places to live; and, lord how we could twirl! The hair got longer and blonder, then shorter and darker, then long and blonde once again. Time slipped by as we continued to celebrate birth and rebirth, marriages and divorces. As each chapter ended and evolved into another, there we were, dancing and twirling as usual. The seasons changed and turned into years, and the years passed into decades.

Then the time came when we went in separate directions; not because of a problem, just different directions. Ten years have now flown by; we each have lived separate lives, and now I hear the news that you are no longer here. I knew you were trying to figure out life but I didn’t know you had gotten fed up with life. I knew you were just a little boy in a big man’s body, and I knew that things affected you more than you expressed, but I did not know that it affected you to this extent. The mind says that I should have known, and maybe I did, but you would not let me back in. I tried but each attempt was denied. Should I have tried harder?

They say that things are perfect just as they are. I even try to live my life as such, but I am having trouble seeing the perfection in this. Is the perfection because you no longer suffer in your pain, or no longer suffer in your sadness, or is it because you have left the body and finally live in the spirit that I always saw?

You gave me courage to soar. You gave me courage to be me. You gave me courage to embark upon new lands. You gave me courage to live my truth. Maybe there’s perfection in that.

I am mad; not necessarily at you, but I am mad as hell. I am mad that you are no longer here to laugh with, dish the dirt with, and to share our hopes and dreams together. I am mad that you took life so seriously, and the affect that it had on you. I am mad that your own emotions over-rode everyone’s love for you. And I am sad for too many reasons to even go through.

So now it comes time to say good-bye, and to say I will see you again some day. I don’t know when that will be, but I will sure look for you. When I see you, I will know that I am in heaven because you were the first angel in my life. You were my best man, literally and figuratively. Maybe your time was just up, and it became time for you to be the celestial angel you were meant to be. Now, just maybe, I am beginning to see the perfection.

I did not want to say good-bye in this way. I thought we would reconnect at some point. I thought we would twirl once again. I knew that we would not twirl the way we used to, and that was okay; after all, we are both different now. But rather than saying good-bye, I will close with just saying, “See you soon, my old friend!”

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