You never know the perfect storm until you're in the middle of one.
Last month, things were going pretty well until Derek picked me up from school one night with bad news: Our dear friend, Ray Tateyama, had passed away.
We drove home silently, both lost in thought. Mine were mostly selfish thoughts. I wondered why it had to happen while we were here in San Diego. Why couldn't we be there? But the dominant thought was: "I am never going to see Ray again."
The next day it was as though it never happened. But other things went wrong; small relatively insignificant things, such as my printer breaking and an okay final performance for my trial skills class. After we received feedback from the judge, I broke down and cried.
The judge probably went home that night wondering what he had said to make a law student bawl like a baby, but his criticisms only had to do with 15 percent of my misery. The printer took up maybe 10 percent of it.
Most of my sadness at that moment and most of the night was because of Ray. Losing Ray.
Derek termed it "the perfect storm."
The other day I opened the newspaper and found the perfect quote for my friend, Ray: "Death is more universal than life. Everyone dies, but not everyone lives."
And boy, did Ray live.
I met Ray when I began playing bass for Jam Up, a band that was very much like the one in Adam Sandler's "Wedding Singer."
Jam Up was composed of executives and managers from ABC Stores. Derek, who had been an assistant manager, played keyboard and saxophone. Naturally, being in a wonderful, new relationship, I eagerly volunteered to play bass when the band lost its original bass player.
Gigging with the guys in the band was great. They were - and remain - some of the most supportive people in my life. It was like the Partridge Family, except that we weren't related by blood and actually played our own instruments and sang with our own voices.
And then there was Ray.
Ray was the emcee of the band. Armed with a mic, he would venture out into the crowd at birthday parties, graduations and weddings. "Hey!" he'd yell. "Do you have anything to say?! Would you like to sing with us?"
Usually the person being subjected to Ray would cringe and shake her head vehemently. Ray would eventually relent and move onto his next victim, but as he walked away, the first person he harassed watched him with even more interest.
Ray had charisma, no matter how you cut it.
Not that there weren't days where Ray made me want to run and hide my head in a pile of macaroni salad. At one of our gigs, Ray introduced me to the 200 guests in the room as "the female..." Not bad until he followed it up with "...impersonator."
The guys in the band still bring that up.
Even funnier, at every gig, Ray would tell everybody that our band was for hire. "Give us a call! All you have to do is feed us! We're freeeee!"
Needless to say, we got gigs.
"Man! Why does Ray always have to embarrass me like that?!" I would grumble. But I loved him. He was like a favorite uncle, the kind of uncle you loved to see and be around, even if you knew he was going to bring up uncomfortable things in a gregarious fashion.
The best thing about Ray was that he never meant any harm in his jokes. He loved us all and he loved life. Ray's love still inspired me, even after we moved thousands of miles away - even now, after he is a world away.
And that's really all we can ask as the year ends: To inspire one another the way Ray did after meeting people. To enjoy life and "make A," no matter what people think about you.
Ray, I'm sorry to have lost you, but I will never be able to express just how fortunate I was to have found you in the first place.
