Meet my new best friend Tyler

I was profoundly impacted by one of the friends who got up and spoke at Baxter's memorial on Saturday. He had met Bax for 3 weeks during a Mr. PG contest several years ago. We had planned to have freivilliges (or free mike) to allow those people the opportunity to speak. While I don't remember the details of his talk I do recall the warmth in my heart, knowing that Baxter impacted people in a positive way. Baxter ended up being crowned Mr. Congeniality, an award chosen internally by all those in the contest.

After the service, Tyler came out to the cabin. Initially he hesitated coming in the cabin as he thought this was for only intimate friends and family. I welcomed him in with open arms and said any friend of Baxter's is a friend of mine. Baxter was in his box, and it was closed and at this point. Tyler was hesitant to see his dead friend. Tyler did end up staying for a while and we told stories about growing up.  It turns out that I had met Tyler 14 years previously. He suggested that because of this event he has a different perspective about death, and has attended many funerals, and spoke at a few of them. You see, Tyler had experienced his own near death when he almost drowned in the Fraser River. I won't bore you with all the details, but when he came in to the hospital,he was misidentified. I was the emergency social worker, and it blew him away that I had been the person that broke the news to his mom and had provided support to his family while he was in hospital.

The other 'coincidence' was that he had lived in Saskatchewan crossing, and was able to give me some nice places to see when I returned there next. (this was the scene of the Baxter's MVA) After a while we needed to move the box so my friend Crystal could paint a piece inside the footboard. He helped move the box, the lid was removed and he ended up spending time face to face with his friend and before he tucked a beer into the box ...