I got some sad news tonight. Kind of ironic on Valentine’s Day, a day all about love, but in a way, I’m also feeling love.

So…tonight, after wishing friends and family love for Valentine’s Day and even wishing a favorite couple happy anniversary, CGS, one of my oldest and closest friends, texted me, she hated to do it through text, but she just found out that someone we were friends with passed away yesterday. And then MM texted me to tell me, I was just going to tell him. Then I texted two more friends, one who knew and one who hadn’t heard yet.

I met AGM in middle school, not sure how we met, but you couldn’t go anywhere without knowing AGM. He brought people together, he made you laugh, helped you out, he was one of those friends who you could call in a jam and they wouldn’t ask questions. I’m not sure how I met some people, but I have a feeling he was the one who introduced me to a few of my friends.

We met in middle school, then went to the same highschool, he was everybody’s friend. You couldn’t miss him, he was tall and had the biggest personality! 1987, we were in high school, and the movie Mannequin came out, Meshach Taylor played Hollywood Montrose, a fabulous character and wouldn’t you know it, AGM used to refer to himself as Hollywood, but much more musical, I can hear it in my head! So…from that moment on, whenever we saw each other, he was Hollywood! And he knew exactly who was calling his name!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, one of our favorite movies. He used to perform it at a theater in Manhattan on the weekends, full court press, and he made a fabulous Dr Frank-N-Furter, I used to go to see him at the theater, he was mesmorizing! Then one year, MM, CGS, AGM, and I, with two other friends, well, they were friends by the time we left, piled in the car and drove to a theater in Springfield, MD, so we could watch Meatloaf, who played Eddie in the movie, open for the Rocky Horror Picture Show live on stage!

I did a semester of college at College of Staten Island, there AGM introduced me to some other great friends, we took a film class together and the one we gravitated towards, and performed a few scenes from, for class, was Clue. He was Wadsworth, of course…the lead, no doubt! who was played by Tim Curry, who also played Dr Frank-N-Furter, in Rocky Horror Picture Show. I sense a theme, wait…I think he also introduced me to Legend, in which Tim Curry played Darkness…hmmm…

No matter what was going on in my life, our paths crossed, when I would come home from college for holidays, we would get together, or I would go to The Red Spot, a bar on Bay Street, where he was working, he also worked at CVS, forever as I remember it! I started seeing photos on FaceBook, and I almost never go on FaceBook, but I had to see it for myself…and there it was, not a rumor, the memories, oh man, the memories.

As sad as it is, reaching out to some friends I haven’t spoken to in years, so worth it. This was not a human being you would, could, or ever want to forget. Although my heart is hurting right now, it’s also full of love, my eyes are welling, but I’m smiling, the biggest smile I have in me. I know all of us who know, knew AGM, are better for having him in our atmosphere, as someone said to me ‘I’ll be happy that, in this short life of mine/ours, that I/we got to spin around the orbit, which was planet AGM.’ I don’t think anyone could have said it better.

As I leave you, my friends, hug each other…today is a gift, and knowing you are in my universe makes me a richer person, thank you.

And now…I’m going to put on my pj’s, get under the covers, and watch Mannequin as I drift off to sleep. Thank you AGM for, well, for you.