Remembering a wonderful friend

I haven't sat down to write an actual blog entry in quite some time. I have been using Twitter and YouTube mostly to keep in touch and give you snippets of my everyday.

I find myself here in tears mourning the loss of a friend, and now for some reason I am ready to write. It is similar to the ease of finding the right words for a song....we seem to get there the quickest in our saddest times. I need to feel this loss and remember all the memories in order to accept what has happened.

John Ur was a wonderful friend I was fortunate to know during my days at Fairfield University (CT). He was one of those people who everyone loved. He was so genuine and wore his heart completely on his sleeve. We were a part of each others college years in more ways than just the friend you see out on the weekends to party it up with. We were both members of the Glee Club, we took classes together in the Media Center studying things we both loved like graphic design, tv & film production, editing, photography etc. We both worked at the Media Center as well and the whole staff was like a little technological family. John was way better at all the technical stuff than me so quite often I would find myself knocking on his door in need of help on a project and without fail he was always excited to help. He was one year older than me but he got hired to work at the University after he graduated so I spent 4 years working and hanging with him on many levels.

John also LOVED music just as I did. He loved singing in Glee Club, and just music in general. I can remember times when we would dive deep into conversations about Radiohead, Jeff Buckley and other music we loved. College was such an exciting time of discovering and obsessing over music.
Here is a pic of us during a Glee Club "Pops Concert". We were both selected to sing the solo parts for the "Grease" hit "Summer Nights" I was Sandy (the short girl/purple shirt) and he was "Johnny" (wearing the jean jacket/jeans to the right of me)

My senior year I was presented with the option to write and record a demo cd of original material and produce it myself on ProTools. I decided to go for it and John was a great supporter through it all. I was such a novice at songwriting and digital recording so he was always there to lend his ear, help me out, and make me laugh when I was frustrated with it all. When the cd was all done he offered up his photographic and design skills and he helped me package it all together. He did all this out of the kindness of his heart and belief in me as a musician and i will never forget that. I remember countless days of printing out the cd jewel case inserts (bought from staples) and burning cds at his apartment and putting together my very first collection of music called "Bits and Pieces". He took the pictures and designed the artwork for it. Summer after graduation I even drove back to fairfield to print up more copies and he was more than willing to open his doors to me. John picked up the guitar in college as well and started to write songs. He would try out his new material on me and I would do the same. It was so wonderful to have a friend like that who knew how to support you when you needed it.

He was one of the hardest working people I knew....always striving to be better and to help anyone he could along the way. In that way he was a wonderful teacher.

About 5 days ago he passed away after less than a year battle with liver cancer. From his detailed entries on his blog I learned how much pain he was in throughout this struggle and that is one of the hardest things to digest. To quote him... "I can handle the idea of death, but I can not deal with uncontrolled pain only leading to death." The other, is how people can be taken from us way too early in life. I hate knowing how much pain he went through but he still found a way to be positive and informative. teaching everyone about what he was battling and trying to fight as hard as he could. Even on his second to last entry on his blog (Sept 22nd) he was able to write these words..."I feel my body deteriorating. Logically, I know this is what is going to happen. Emotionally, I have to deny this. I need to remain positive and I need to put all of my effort into making my body stronger."

John and I kept in touch after college as best as we could. Checking in from time to time...he would ask about music and i would ask him about his work at FU and his amazing travels all over the world. I alway looked forward to getting links to all his photos. He had such a way with capturing an image. I had a folder of just his pictures that i would rotate as desktop art on my computer. He also wrote and directed a short film called "Yellow Raincoat". I helped donate some funds so he could submit to film festivals. I have my signed copy from him right here and I am gonna watch it in a few. He would buy my cds and always support me keeping at music. As time went on the time between our correspondence grew bigger. I guess that is just normal once so many years passed after college. His new job lead him to France and he was busy with his new life over there. I wish I had kept in better touch with him. Sadly I never got to say goodbye and that is what has been hurting me the most. If you take anything from this entry, think about some of the friends and family you have not spoken with in some time. Drop them an email or a phone call to say hello. Tell them you love them. The cliche is so true that you never know when that "Hello" might be the last.

John, you will be truly missed.

love, k