Rest Empowered Mon Ami

When I was a freshman in college, I made a friend in my foreign film class.  My friend's name was Ray.  We knowingly went to the same high school, shared mutual friends, but never developed a relationship beyond first name acknowledgments when we passed in the halls back then.  I had the pleasure of working with Ray and a few other students in the film class on a film project leading to a defined friendship between Ray and I.  His desire to create and express himself through music, poetry, film, language, a passion for life, as in all people I call friends, attracted me to him immediately.  The conversations we shared about music, the writing of and listening to, were sources of my inspiration to learn music better, to be able to write and perform.  His encouragement to sing, ultimately, was what got me interested in doing so.  His encouragement to let go of the ego so that others can experience it urged me to work creatively.

After that class Ray moved to Paris for a semester or two while we kept in contact via myspace and email.  The conversations ceased not, even when so much land and water sat between us.  For five years Ray and I shared a friendship built around music, literature, poetry, and coffee.  One of the most rewarding relationships I've had.  He taught me so much about performing, sensitivity, writing, humility, and reaching for what I want most that I have a hard time thinking of anyone else that's been as influential as he has to me in that way.

This morning a friend texted me asking if Ray passed away today.

He did.

I don't know how, why, where.  I'm truly, truly broken.  I'm at a complete loss.

This bit is the last time I had the pleasure of seeing Ray.  He and his band, Fred Jones, performed for He Speaks: A Stand Against Violence Towards Women.  When I had asked him if they'd be interested (without the mention of pay), Ray said that he and the band would be more than willing to help the Women's Center in any way.  This bit is from that performance.  His voice is so beautiful and his music is so uplifting. 

PS, I filmed it which explains the shaky camera.

He's such a good, loving, generous, thoughtful person, it's fucking cruel to lose him so early.  The whole world is a little darker without his light, my world a little heavier without his support.