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I never got around to posting these last month. I only just got them processed last week. Then I hit that point where I felt it was too late to post them; untimeliness and all that…

Then I rethought it all. Given danbearnyc‘s death on freakin’-christmas-day and my uncle’s death this past weekend and rockey1‘s failing health at the moment, I realize that this is the perfect time to post these…

The back-story: Mott-ly. I have spoken of him here before, but can’t seem to find any tag on those posts. Mott-ly died (I think) some two and a half-three and a half years ago. He well could have walked right out of And the Band Played On… He was a hemophiliac; at the time that I met him, he had already lost both legs above the knees. He had contracted HIV back in the day from an infected blood transfusion.

And he lit up the world around him like no body’s business.

He set the local art community on edge on a daily basis and they all adored him for it every day. The Late Show gallery has an annual Mott-ly Tribute Show, where all participants enter pieces made in the style of Mott-ly: all found-object treasure chests and collages… It is a phenomenal and energized experience.

And then there is his Celebration of Life. Every year, on Decemeber 12 (his birthday) friends and family gather to celebrate the life of the artist known as Mott-ly. And they do so with the dreaded concoction shown above: 99 Bananas, which – if you are curious – has not one single speck of banana in it. It is dreadful and feared through out the land and I am disturbed by how much I like it.

Anyway, as I am told, it was Mott-ly’s favorite; the sick bastard!

This year, everyone gathered at the Pi Gallery and shared their stories of Mott-ly. One bottle passed aroudn the crowd as the other served the function of the ‘talking stick’… whoever held it had the floor and offered his or her best stories of the artist. Tears of joy and some of sadness flowed alongside the retched banana stuff…

The lighting levels were rough, so my photos as not-so-great, but the washed-out woman up front taking a swig from the talking stick bottle is Mom-ly. Yes, you guessed it; that would be Mott-ly’s mother. The washed out man a bit to her side is Dad-ly. They make it easy to understand how Mott-ly turned out to be so phenomenal.

The woman on the chair above is Cheryl Lu (pardons for hacking the spelling of her name; I have never seen it in writing…) She is a singer and spoken word performer. Phenomenal in her own right. At Mott-ly’s memorial, she composed a written word performance titled Mott-ly Has One Leg that has been performed at numerous recurring events such as this. It does not get old. I am delighted and tickled each time I hear it.

As for personal stories, I did not speak mine aloud with the talking stick. I whispered mine into Apryl’s ear. I would not have been able to finish it if addressing the entire crowd; for good and bad reasons.

You see, I only met Mott-ly on three different occasions. The first at his gallery space Momo for a friend’s show reception. I allowed myself to be too intimidated to speak to the man. As tiny as he was in the wheelchair, he was a powerhouse of energy and I reined myself in instead of rising up to meet him; sopmething that doesn’t happen so often these days for me…

The final meeting is of little consequence, except to say that it was the last time I got to see him.

The second one, that is the doozy. That is the one that shook the foundation and set a brotherhood into the bedrock for all times. And it was rather easy, as I supect most things are around Mott-ly.

I went for pizza at Grinder’s with Apryl and Lori Rae (both pictured above). Others began joining us, as others do in this group. And folks began mentioning that this Mott-ly fellow was on his way. (You see, until he showed up, I didn’t place him with the fellow I met at Momo.) After his arrival, there was varied small talk while waiting for the food. He asked me how things were and I dismissively commented about bothersome med side-effects.

His eyebrow raised and he drew in his attention. I didn’t notice this until thinking on it afterward. “From what meds?” he asked.

I did my typical, speak honestly but don’t go for the knock-out obvious truth, “Anti-retrovirals.”

We were instant brothers right there and then. Unconditionally.

You see, as adored and loved as he was, Mott-ly was a token as well. He was a one-of-a-kind sort of person on all fronts. And that can get lonely, I suspect. He was the only hemophiliac in the art crowd. The only amputee. The only straight man living out and openly with HIV.

And on that day, waiting for the pizza, he got to lose one of his onlys… I imagine that can be an incredible moment.

That is my story of Mott-ly, as brief as it may be.

Thank you for indulging, it ran longer than I intended. But the whole point of all of this…? What these people do; the thing they bring up front as one of their own passes (and it has been flowing heavily these past few years)..? This is what I want to hold to my heart when someone I care for dies. I want to remember to celebrate them, not mourn. For me, the mourning is a way of marking my loss of them in my daily routine, not their death. I want to celebrate their lives; remember how great an impact they had on me.

For this, I think without a doubt that my tribe has figured it out.