A Sad Loss

This morning I learned that Brian (one of my guests) passed away. I do not think that the obituary in the paper gave his life justice. The picture provided is handsome and he was a proud alumni of Jesuit High so he would have liked that is high school picture was shown but it was unfortunately unrecognizable for those who knew him more recently. This by no means is an obituary but I do have some nice memories to share about him because he was apart of our life here at the Center and will always be remembered.

Brian was a character to say the least and full of facts about New Orleans, Jesuit High, people in the city, the gossip of the city, the weather, vacations to take, or really just anything and everything. He could talk for hours if you let him which was normally ill timed (beginning in the early morning when the most people wanted to talk) but when he caught you at a good time to chat he was a wonderful conversationalist and always had a compliment in his back pocket. He kept me up to date on the happenings of the city, the concerts to go to, the free food events, the best restaurants and who to talk to. He especially liked to talk about California and how much he liked it, but the conversation always ended with how much better New Orleans is. Brian was also very proud of his background. He enjoyed telling me all about his time at Jesuit High and what the alumni from him class were up to. One of his peers is now a judge in New Orleans and got Brian out of a few sticky situations. His friendly personality was wonderful and he was very generous with anything he had. He asked me to be his date to the Jesuit High reunion a few months ago, insisting that if I say yes then he would buy me a dress and be a wonderful date. I politely said no thank you but that I appreciated the offer; although this did not deter him so I told him that he had to ask Don's permission to take me. Don explained to him that that was not going to happen and he needed to stop asking me. Brian was not insulted and we still had lots of talks about California which I appreciated. It makes me sad to think that Brian is gone but I am happy to say that I knew him and that he made an impact on my life.