On the morning of Saturday, March 29, 2003, I awoke as normal, with no feeling that something was wrong. I went to work as normal, and it wasn't until an hour later, when my mom came in crying, that I found my world flipped topsy-turvy. The night before, one of my best friends in the world, the fiance of my oldest friend, the man who inspired my own fiance's entire spiritual philosophy with a few off-hand stories, Blaze Culpepper, passed from the vale of tears into the world of legend. And as I and the others who knew him and knew how special he was tried desperately to wrap our minds around this shocking tragedy, the loss of his fire, his exuberance, his fragile and brilliant energy, was already slowly seeping into our hearts, dulling the sunshine on that warm spring day.

Blaze was an amazing person, a legendary partier, a fantastic musician, a generous and caring friend, a vast repository of easily-accessed drug information and first aid/safety plans, a hard worker, an avid Doors fan, an open-minded and freely spiritual young man, and a terrific boyfriend/fiance to his girl. Words cannot express how much he'll be missed.

I encourage everyone to funnel a beer in Blaze's honor, and for those of you who smoke, I encourage you to refer to the act from now on as "getting Blazed." He would have been more pleased by those two acts of tribute than almost anything else I can think of.

More to come soon...

Sign Guestbook View Guestbook