Entering 2023

Good morning,

This is a bit of a personal post I hope you’ll allow. This morning, as my immigrant parents are visiting their homes in Laos for the 1st time in 18 years, I’m feeling quite emotionally overwhelmed. I feel it’s important to express gratitude in these moments and thank those who may be watching over us.

I’ve added a dedication to my two dear friends from the past today — Victor Cruz and Liam Renzulli.

Victor was a friend of my partner’s and a close friend of mine at the time when I was a teenage groupie for their local band, Beside These Walls. I think about going to metal shows together at Peabody’s, hanging on the weekends, and when he bought that guy from Attack Attack a slice of pizza. After his passing, I took my mom to the lake in Cleveland and remember looking over at a motorcycle that pulled up next to us and seeing someone just like him in full physical form — same face, body, and energy.

I visited his obituary page today just to see the same image I saw that day, as the page background.

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Liam was a good friend of mine in high school who left quite an impression on me.

He was one of the first people that ever taught me I could find friends in unexpected places — the table closest to the door in that crazy math teacher’s class we had in Sophomore year (he ended up on the news dude). We would talk about music, Rammstein and Rage Against the Machine. He would tell me about Arizona a lot. I remember always looking forward to sitting together and talking all during class and just feeling like having him as a friend was so cool.

I felt like we just got each other instantly. It was unspoken.

I really just loved him as a person looking back now at it. I would have loved to have gotten closer than those moments.

……

To Liam and Victor,

Kimberly.