Hello all. I’m both saddened and honored to be here with you to say a few words about my dear friend, Aaron. I’ve spent the past week reliving my time with him, sharing favorite memories with friends.
When I look around here at everyone I know through Aaron, I see so clearly the shape and the shade of his approach to life. Certainly his circle of friends includes a diverse and eclectic group, but what was wonderful about Aaron was the way that he brought these people of varied and different interests and tastes together. He made it work.
I remember meeting him for the first time, when Robbie brought me to his house in Mill Valley seven short years ago. I don’t think I then suspected what a cherished friendship would develop from that afternoon, but I’m sure Aaron did. He thrived on meeting new people, on creating connections and friendships, on sharing stories and laughs, on introducing new people into the mix and seeing what developed.
I don’t know that I’ve ever met a more warm, open, accepting, and altogether positive person than Aaron. His ability to make others feel at ease in his presence was a rare gift. Even after months of travel and work had kept us from seeing each other, I never felt that we had any catching up to do – it was always as though we were picking up the thread of a conversation which had been interrupted only moments ago.
It doesn’t seem that I’ve known Aaron for seven years; he made me feel as though we’d been friends for so much longer than that. He was a person I knew I could count on to join me in any adventure, who would daydream with me about the future and make delightfully, absurdly unrealistic plans, or who would sit with me on an afternoon looking out over the headlands, both of us lost in thought and the whistle of the wind.
Seeing Aaron dance was an experience that never failed to bring me hilarious joy. His sense of rhythm and timing . . . well, he might simply have been engaged in a syncopated expression which I was not sophisticated enough to interpret. I have so many fond memories of the A-Train on the dance floor, moving at once to the music around us and yet at the same time in tune to perhaps something only he could hear, glowing exuberantly, beaming his infectious smile. It seems to me that Aaron lived his life in the same manner in which he danced. He moved in the ways that made him happy, that made sense to him, without fear of failure or disappointment.
Aaron understood something that many of us find too easy to forget; that in any pursuit from something as simple as preparing a cup of tea to the complexities of winemaking, the final result is nowhere near as important as is the enjoyment of the steps along the way. Aaron put savoring life’s flavor at the top of his agenda, and lived a fuller, more gratifying life for it.
Thank you all for joining together to celebrate Aaron’s life and to mourn his passing. The world is poorer, Chooch, for your departure, yet our lives are all the richer for having you with us.
I miss you, brother, and will keep you close to my heart.