Stu and Julia, good friends of Ben’s, were married yesterday.

Ben seemed to be with us all day—and yet at the same time so dreadfully not with us.

In his speech later in the evening, Stu spoke of Ben and how he had been involved in both their lives. He said, "Ben couldn’t be with us today, because he has a better party to be at."

Stu and Ben in their 'youth'

That reminds me of a dream another of his friends told me about. In her dream Ben told her not to be worried about him because he was better than fine. I remember too, a mother at the hospital who wrote me a text soon after Ben had died saying she hoped he was giving them plenty of trouble ‘up there’—that same kind of idea of high spirits and incomparable good times.

So while we muck around here, where energy flags and fun can seem a little faded at times, we think of Ben somewhere else, where colours are brilliant beyond imagining and where drum beats and music and partying go on forever.