When I look back on my life so far, and think about the most fun times I've had in it, David was usually there. We met half a lifetime ago, working at UCI cinema in Sutton, during my university years. He was one of the first people I clicked with there, someone who shared my twisted sense of humour and quirky outlook. I remember one of our first conversations, in the staff minibus home one night after a late shift, when he said I had "hypnotic eyes". It didn't feel like a chat up line, though. Dave was just like that - he said what was on his mind and gave compliments without agenda. I can't remember what I said in return, but from then on we bonded and quickly became firm friends, usually to be found loitering outside the cinema screens bantering, while trying to avoid watching The Nutty Professor for the umpteenth time. We spent a lot of time together outside of work, too. He would come over to my student digs, and we'd go down to the local video store to rent a movie, or just drink a few beers and talk nonsense into the wee small hours.
I finished uni and left London, eventually ending up settling in Brighton for a while. I lost touch with all my university friends, but the cinema crowd stuck. David loved it down by the sea, and came to visit whenever he could, especially if there was a party in the offing, which there very often was. Mostly fancy dress occasions in those days, and though Dave rarely got organised with a costume, he was wonderfully game for letting himself be dressed up as whatever I could rustle up for him at short notice. Some of the classics included Shirley Bassey, The Wicker Man, Baron Samedi and Jimi Hendrix. He embraced these eccentric glow-ups and he loved every minute of it. They were the best of times, with the best of people and he was always at the heart of it.
Although Dave was irreverent in his humour, he could be extremely sincere and open with his feelings towards those he loved. He had a big heart which he shared generously and widely, and was well loved in return by a wide circle of friends from different areas of his life. In recent years our texts were positively soppy, and I loved that. I can only remember one serious falling out between us over the years, a bust-up at a party which was no doubt skewed by intoxication. But we quickly made up a day or so later after some heartfelt emails back and forth. It felt too hard to do anything else.
The news of David's sudden and unexpected death has utterly capsized me. The thought that I could never again have a Dave hug, or share a stupid joke that only he would appreciate; that he won't get to grow old and disgraceful with the rest of us, it feels so painfully unfair. The grief has left a hollowness, like a little part of me has gone with him - the shadowy former self that I carried around in the years since we stopped hanging out all the time, of a carefree girl with a twinkle in her eye, finding a kindred spirit and holding onto that feeling inside, waiting for it to reignite. But it won't, because he's gone. And so has the girl. Perhaps she's out there somewhere with him, laughing til it hurts and watching the sunrise together in the great unknown. Yet here I am still walking and talking and acting like a fully functional human. They can't see it - the empty space - but it's there, filled only with yearning for the conversations we'll never have in a felled future that might have been.
David, without you I am less than me. I will never stop loving and missing you, or the person I was when I was with you.
"In my shoes
Walking sleep
In my youth, I pray to keep
Heaven send
Hell away
No one sings like you anymore"
(Black Hole Sun, Soundgarden)
