This can’t be real. I’m in shock. We texted just last week, about the Tampa Bay Lightning and Rick Barnes “looking good!”

You have made me laugh and laugh, and you helped me be strong and look at life in a new way. And in the 21 years I knew you, I was lucky for all 21 of those years, and then some. Your gifts to the world will continue through all of us, the Tower C group, the Chatham girls, the “East End Mafia.”

I tried to prepare myself for this, but you never can really prepare yourself for this. I just want another quarter draft night at Zelda’s on Bouquet Street, where we count the number of plastic cups stacked on the old wooden table, and you can pick out the ones I drank out of, because they’re the only ones with a lipstick smudge on them.

I need to dry my tears and gather my thoughts about you, my dear friend.