Dear Dan,
I sometimes still visit your Facebook page. In some ways I can suspend belief that you are gone and pretend we’ve just been too busy lately to check in, but there is a pesky notification banner on your profile that says, “We hope people who love Dan will find comfort in visiting his profile to remember and celebrate his life.” It gets me every time. That, and the simple drawing of flowers next to the message. The flowers annoy me for some reason.
Anyway, sometimes I visit your page to see if someone has left you a remembrance and sometimes I scroll through your timeline to look at pictures your sister posted of you throughout your life. Sometimes I look for your last post and sometimes I look for ToÑo last post on your timeline. This is not generally a very purposeful activity, but rather a muscle-memory type of rabbithole I find myself in. I sometimes wonder if my subconscious is searching for you, hoping we’ll meet where time and space lose its context.
I found a post I wrote on your timeline. I just thought I’d share it with you again.
-K
Dan and ToÑo asked if I would be their witness when they got married. It was on July 11th and I remember this clearly because they were amused it was like’ 7/11’ and also it was 100000 degrees because it was the middle of summer here in LA and I remember they cut and hand-sewn their pants into shorts. I brought them matching boutonnieres to wear and I had the honor of watching them recite their vows to each other in someone’s living room. It was all so simple, so perfect. It was really quite lovely. We celebrated the day with waffles and mimosas. Because, well, why not?
I got to know Toño through Dan, and through their relationship, but honestly, I got to know him most last year when Dan was diagnosed with cancer.
Although we didn’t know each other as well as Dan and I knew each other, Toño always texted me with updates on Dan’s health and through these conversations, we began to build our own relationship. Every time they were in the hospital, he could depend on me to come and to come with support. We sometimes came all together and sometimes on our own or in shifts, but we always came through.
Toño never left Dan’s side, despite the medical staff’s insistence it was okay to do so. He had a notebook that meticulously recorded Dan’s medications and times. He knew how to use many of the machines that helped keep Dan comfortable. In Dan’s last days, I remember sitting on the opposite side of the bed from Toño and taking turns using a sponge on Dan’s lips. I told them both how much I loved them and I told them that everything would be okay.
Visiting Dan at the hospital was just as much about supporting Dan as it was about supporting Tono. We’d bring him food (as I mentioned, he often refused to leave Dan’s side) or offer to sit with Dan so Toño could get some much-needed air. I often wished that I could help carry the load that Toño was shouldering every time I saw him.
I remember once at the hospital, while feeling particularly hopeless that I couldn’t do more, I gifted Tono a pair of stones given to me by a very wonderful friend of mine. I told him it was filled with lots and lots of love (which was true) and I said to just carry it with him as a reminder that he was very loved by so many people. I don’t know if he thought I was crazy at that moment (he might have, but was too polite to say anything!), but he graciously accepted my simple gesture of love. Those two stones had a lot of personal value to me, but as someone wise had taught me (by example), these things are sometimes meant to be passed on to someone who needs it more.
Then, weeks later, Toño pulled the two stones out of his pants pocket to show them to me. He told me he always carried them with him. I loved how he tucked them away back into his pocket after as if securing his treasure back into his secret hiding place. I hope he carried those stones with him for as long as he needed it and I hope it did remind him he was loved, because he so clearly was, not just by myself and my tiny circle, but now I see by an expansive group of people that span as wide as the horizon.
Toño, I wish we had had more time together. I am very saddened by your death, selfishly for myself and for the long list of people who adore you, because I had hoped for more time together getting to know you and growing our friendship. I am trying to find comfort, however, in the idea that you are off adventuring with Dan right now and that you are both finally free. 
