Gary Anello

Statistically speaking, it must be incredibly rare to have both a friend born one year and a day before you as well as a friend who was born a year and a day after you. Since 1995, I’ve had the latter, and from 2000 to 2010, I had the former.

As it’s the 6th of December 2016, and Gary Anello would have been forty today, I want to take a moment to say thanks to someone who’s been gone for over half a decade now. We were co-workers at Borders in Fort Worth, TX from 2000 until I moved to LA in 2002. Afterward, I stopped in and said hello whenever I was in town, and eventually we caught up on Facebook, and I’m glad we were able to talk a few times on the phone before Gary died.

Our last conversations put a lot in perspective for me, and though our interactions were brief blips in the totality of our respective lives, you don’t have to spend a lot of time with a fireman who pulls you from a burning building to say he had an impact on your life. So thanks to my metaphorical fireman, who should have been forty today; the echo of your voice still resounds in the lives of those who knew you.