When Foundations Crumble.

There are people in our lives we love on promise, or what might have been. These people are in our lives for a short time, and we never forget them. They periodically inform our existence. They were one great weekend, or a summer we'll never forget.

They are an ideal we hold close to our hearts.

There are people in our lives we love through experience, exchange and memory. These people are family, and our closest and longest friends. These people are the colours we paint our existence with.

They are an idea we keep inside our hearts.

From this select second group we pick a few to create our foundations. These are the people we love, will always love and who we built our lives upon. These aren't simply our family members, although usually some are a part of this group. These are the people who came into our lives, when we became people in the fullest sense of the word.

They make up the heart of who we are.

I lost one of these foundations today.

I hadn't seem him in many years. We had lost touch, but recently reconnected. But there wasn't a week I didn't think of him and our time together. He was the third leg that dragged me awkwardly towards adulthood.

I had myself. I had Andre. And I had Clint. Now Clint is gone.

Clint and Andre were the first people I tried to be myself around. They were the first people I was honest and real and scared and vulnerable with. We spent many hours, late at night, in my Mom and Dad's Oldsmobile trying to figure out life. We never succeeded. But we did a decent job of figuring out ourselves.

I like who I became through that dialectic of friendship and honesty. I'm not perfect. I'm not even that spectacular. But, I genuinely like who I am. I owe Clint a debt for that.

It's a debt I can no longer repay.

Clint died in a car accident. I don't know the details, but I'm afraid of what I know. He was driving a truck at 2:30 am on the wrong side of the trans-Canada highway when he struck another vehicle. As I said, I don't know the details. But I hope the world doesn't remember him for this accident.

Clint was a good man. He was complicated, and funny and kind. In a small logging and fishing town full of rednecks and casual racists he was good friends with everyone. It wasn't an act. He liked people. He didn't like categories of people, or types of people. He liked individual people he met.

Clint was a good man.

He also made some questionable decisions. He drank. He fought. He cheered for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He loved people he shouldn't. But he really loved those he should.

And I was one of those people.

I never doubted that Clint loved me, despite our time apart. I don't have a lot of people beyond my family who love me. It fucking sucks to lose one.

I love you too Clint.
I always will.