TALKS

Gabby’s talk

I met Max on May 12 of 2019 which means that I have known max for exactly 643 days. Not nearly as many as I wanted to have with him but 643 days none the less.

I remember the day we met vividly. We decided to eat Thai food which if you know Max is one of his least favorite foods, unbeknownst to me. He let me choose the restaurant, we decided to eat without shoes cross legged on the floor and Max proceeded to purchase just about everything except for the establishment. I don’t think I had to make dinner for probably the entirety of that week.

Max and I grew quickly together. He asked me to move in with him after just two months of knowing him. And I said yes as fast as I could. It became instantly obvious we were each other’s twin flame; a type of soulmate that defines the same person and I guess that’s why we loved each other so easily, so quickly. We became safe places for each other. We both knew exactly where we were in life, where we wanted to be. We had plans to travel, we had plans to run away together, possibly start a family, live on a farm with at least a hundred dogs, and 12 acres of land we specified exactly. The closer we got to that reality, The more I could see the light in his eyes. I’m sure he could see it in mine too. I learned so much about max and so quickly. For example:  Max is not a fan of Thai food, though he did love food. I mean LOVES food and can put it away without a trace. He could eat a meal I made for food prepping, and it would be gone overnight. Would it show? Absolutely not. His favorite food is actually something he called “nums” which was actually just my best guess of what he was craving.

I learned he had always been waiting for somebody to tell him his hair looked better longer so that he could grow it out to a man bun. He quickly regretted this when summers came around.

I learned His favorite time of the day was the night. He had an outdoor hammock that we would lay on all day, wait until the stars came out and interrupt each other when we found a shooting one. We would stay like that throughout the night, wake up at 2am from the freezing temperatures and decide March is not an appropriate month to be sleeping outside. although he loved the sunny days as well.

He blossomed in Hawaii, his smile was contagious. His favorite moments of our trip were filled mostly with me either getting wiped out by waves or almost falling out of trees getting guava for us to share.

He knew just about anything in a debate about absolutely anything, I thought I did too until he whipped out facts on the fly which was a talent he attributed to his daily consumption of Reddit.

I learned that one of his favorite things to do was take a bath. I would buy him eucalyptus bath salts for his birthday and the look of absolute joy like I have never seen giving someone this present would always appear. He had this gleeful reaction for most things I would bring him, including his secret obsession with Pokémon cards which made a romantic Valentine’s Day present. He would proceed to ask me to help him organize them into binders, which I always did incorrectly, it was by sets and alphabetically, not which ones I thought were the cutest.

And the most important thing I learned: his family and friends were the most important thing to him. His mom and sister being his shooting stars and his dad being his eucalyptus salts and Pokémon cards. His friends being his rock, and his memorable weekends filled with bonfires and fireworks. And kaneo and I being the start of a new family.

We became inseparable from day one. There wasn’t a single day we could get by that we didn’t call/text/randomly show up to see each other.

We are currently still inseparable. The postcards he would write me in the mornings from the night before telling me to simply have an amazing day at school still live in my shelves at home. His friends who still tell me stories of max and the amazing and epic adventures they had. The photos we collected into scrapbooks from our time together of course organized by date.

I knew max for 643 days, but he is with me, with us, forever.

I never got to officially say goodbye to Maxwell Gregory Daniel, and I never will.

Ed’s Talk

I’m going to take the cowards way out and wear my sunglasses so if I get choked up anybody can feel free to join me so I won’t feel embarrassed.

Max was my buddy and I’m gonna miss him a lot. When I think back, over most of the things I remember about him are our get togethers that started with the “Hey Uncle Ed” phone call.

Remembering one time I received a phone call saying “Hey Uncle Ed, I need this tool or this socket” or whatever it was and I picked up my tools and went over to max’s house. There was an entire BMW disassembled on the floor of his garage and I said “Max? How did you know how to do this? I knew he didn’t have any experience doing that type of thing. He looked at me and grinned and said, “I just figured it out!”

He was fearless at trying things and trying to figure things out.

Along with a lot of other Hey Uncle Ed phone calls, there was one Hey Uncle Ed, I just bought this great piece of wood and I wanna make a mantle for my fireplace. Can you come on over? Neither of us knew what we were doing and we looked at it and we got it done and figured it out.

Then there were some of the bigger calls.

Hey Uncle Ed,what are you doing for the weekend? Me and my dad want to put a patio in the back of our house! Or hey Uncle Ed, what are you doing for the next couple weeks? Me and my dad want to put a huge storage shed in our backyard. That was hilarious because none of the three of us didn’t know what the hell we were doing. Somehow, they kind of thought I did, but I didn’t. But you know we laughed at our mistakes and high fived when we had successes and as Max would say “We figured it out”.

The last time I talked to Max was on Christmas day and after we did the usual holiday pleasantries Max started talking about how he was just so upset seeing more and more homeless people on the streets in Bellingham. We speculated that there’s got to be a better way and what can we do to try to make things better for people that don’t have enough. And I kind a looked at him looked at him, said to Max “you have some good ideas here why don’t you go into politics?” and he broke out laughing. And after a while he said maybe that’s not such a bad idea.

Max was totally compassionate for people who didn’t have as much as he had. Shortly thereafter was the last time I heard from Max and it was on a text message. This is the difficult one. And I forgot what the bulk of the message was but his final text was “I love you guys and give Diane a hug for me.”

So when I look back and remember Max I’m gonna remember that he was fearless, smart, he was compassionate and loving and I think as time goes on when I think about my buddy Max I’m gonna smile