I used to live in a big loft in Manhattan and - while Steven was living in NY - Jim ended up being between apartments and crashed on my sofa for about a month. One night over Labor Day weekend, he and Steven and I were just hanging out - I think we were watching a movie. We were also dog-sitting for a friend of one of my roommates because they had gone to a bar around the corner.

We became absolutely convinced that the dog, Loopy, really had to pee. We were quite comfortably settled but the three of us got up and took the dog outside. It turned out that he'd just missed his owner because we got outside and he just stood there.

We all went back upstairs and eventually fell asleep - Jim on one sofa, Steven on another, and me up in my loft. A few hours later, I wake up and someone is halfway up the ladder to my loft. It's pitch dark so at first I think it's Jim or Steven waking me up for some reason but I quickly realize that whoever it is has an Irish accent. I ask him who he is and he says, "Don't you remember? We met at the bar around the corner." Now, I don't know what you may have heard about me but I'll admit that I paused a moment to think about it. Then I remembered what I'd done the evening before and asked him if he was confusing me with my roommate. He said no. Then I realized that he had no clothes on.

I made him back down the ladder and turned on the light, asking him AGAIN, "Are you sure you don't mean Carrington?" Carrington was my blonde-haired, blue-eyed roommate. He says that he'd come home with me and if I'd just give him his clothes which are in my loft then he'd leave. I get him out of my room and Steven wakes up. He can tell I'm upset and he just grabs the guy.

The naked guy is drunk, too, and starts to yell, "What are you doing?" And Steven just says, "You're bothering Julie. You need to go." Soon Jim is up and my other roommate, Donovan, too. I'm calling the cops and Steven and Don wrestle the naked guy out the door and he's out in the hall. It turns out that the very drunk naked guy had confused me with my blonde roommate who was just passed out in HER loft.

I don't live there anymore but I had dinner with Carrington on Thursday and I was thinking about Steven and Jim and that night. The next morning, I found out from Jim that Steven had passed away.

I wish I was better at keeping in touch with people in other cities and I can't tell you how much I wish I hadn't lost touch with Steven. You are very lucky to have shared a love with him. He was truly a good man.

I remember how the three of us would sit around in my loft and he'd talk about various get-rich-quick schemes he'd devised. Yeah, he would've liked to retire early but he really wanted the money to take care of his folks. He always said how "they've worked so hard," and he wanted to make them more comfortable in their old age.

The last communication I had from him was an email on February 20th. He'd just sent out the group message letting everyone know what was happening. I wrote back to get his address and told him that I was getting married in June. He wrote back that things had been difficult but that he felt really lucky to have you. He also wrote in congratulations, "Yeahhhhh!" And it makes my heart heavy because I can hear his voice so clearly...

I'm not a religious person. I don't believe that there's an afterlife beyond the memories that endure in the hearts and minds of those that live on afterwards. But Steven left us so many beautiful, funny, happy memories. Steven holding me up at the aOnline party because I'm too tipsy to stand for a picture. Steven wrestling a naked Irishman at 3 am to protect me. Watching the NBA finals, going to a Seam show, eating in Chinatown. If there is an afterlife vis-a-vis our memories of him, then Steven is surely in heaven because he was an unequivocally good and loyal friend and a sweet, sweet man.

-Julie Shiroishi

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