When Chris was diagnosed with cancer, we were there for him. We organized a benefit screening of a film and an auction at Vancity Theatre where Chris worked for years and we raised $10,000 for a "comfort fund" for him. It was a resource for him during the ensuing 4.5 years of his life and while he was alive a "salon" group and a "breakfast" group formed to party with Chris. Chris lived close to the Sylvia Hotel so it was easy for him to get there (even with help toward the end) where we could have drinks and snacks together without crowding into Chris' apartment.
The Sunday Salon group were a bunch of friends from Chris's time at the Arts Club Theatre (the 1980s). A lot of us who Salon together worked in the office or backstage and we had drifted apart but Chris brought us back together to have regular salons all during his last years with us. The Breakfast group dates to the same era and the Arts Club, but it is almost exclusively comprised of actors. Lucky for me, I was part of both groups and since Chris's death in December, both groups have met again at the Sylvia (the Salon group, this past Sunday), and we have vowed to keep meeting indefinitely.
What greater testament to a friend is there than the desire of all his friends to stay together forever as "Chris's friends." All through the 80s when I lost so many friends to AIDS (dear Rory, oh my God, and Peter, Chris C.), I felt horrid about the ending of community that went with each one. IN every case, friends rallied to be the support team, but with each death the ties that bound turned to ashes immediately. Perhaps it was because we all had another death to move on to. Perhaps it was to put the deaths "behind" us because they were awful deaths. Who knows?
But with every Salon and Breakfast, Chris stays alive in our hearts. I am so proud of us because I cannot help but feeling that this is how it should be. You lose one but you gain a bunch.
No comments:
Post a Comment