Michael "Bo" Bowman 9/24/68 -7/9/08

There was a Celebration of Life for my friend Bo tonight. At Tavern on the Green in Central Park no less. Bo died last month of Necrotizing Fasciitis. He died from a blister on his foot that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He never saw 40. It seems so hard to believe. In fact it is hard to believe. I feel he was just getting started. He had a job he loved, a partner he loved and new apartment with an amazing view of New York City he loved and he was so very, very loved by so many, many people.

We were new friends. I met him at the beginning of October last year when I first arrived in New York City. Our mutual friend Brad in Los Angeles gave me his number and said to call. I did. He and his partner Andy had just bought an apartment in the sky and had just moved in. He invited me up that evening of my phone call sight unseen. I liked him and Andy instantly. I had a great evening looking out at the view over the unpacked boxes. Bo had just made New York City a little smaller, a little warmer, a little more possible for me.

I had a hard time wrapping my head around a "Celebration of Life" for someone who was not 70 or 80 years of age. If someone dies at 39 it is a tragedy and should be mourned. But this celebration with remembrances and songs and photos and LOVE was exactly right. I was wrong. Bo is gone whether I think it is right or fair or ridiculous. So his life here is over and what he did here needed to be celebrated.

The Celebration was held in this over the top room that was like a greenhouse with clear windows looking out onto the lush Tavern gardens festooned with 100s of lanterns. Inside there were giant, ornate chandeliers of all colours everywhere. It was the winter palace from Dr. Zhivago mixed with a little gaiety. I liked being there with all these people.

I told Bo's mom later that though I had only known him 10 months I knew exactly what all his near and dear meant when they said that Bo loved celebrating peoples' creativity and how he wanted people to do well, how he wanted them to know what he loved and what excited him. They talked about how he often had a hard road figuring out how to manage his exuberant energy, but how he kept at it. And how he was so happy settling down with Andy. I felt all that from Bo.

He seemed to be always concerned about my flaking skin on my face and really pushed moisturizing. Once I had a job interview and Bo asked if he could come to my apartment and give me a facial. He did just that with all his gear in tow including blow dryer for a hot oil treatment. I still have the bottle of vitamin E oil that he gave me. Somehow I think I will always be inspired by vitamin E.

I have been blessed so HUGELY since coming to New York City and a gift I received early on I thought would grow and expand, but now I feel I have to take Bo and bottle him and use him sparingly and be inspired by of him often.

Goodnight, my new pal. And thank you for loving me in a way that I had not earned yet. Thank you for taking me in to Bo's world. I will miss you and I wish selfishly and longingly that we could have had more adventures in NYC together. But your pixie dust has been sprinkled and I am a grateful recipient of the glow it makes when the light hits it.

Here is the poem they read for Bo tonight:

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems