Miss You More!

So, I haven't been posting very much lately. We're in the midst of the holiday season, a busy time for many. I've been doing most of the holiday things I usually do - baking cookies, shopping for gifts, spending time with family and friends.

Through it all, John Henry has been in the forefront of my mind but a strange thing has happened...I don't have a lot to say (or in this medium, write). It's not that I have no contemplations of him or stories to convey. We all know we have plenty of stories to keep this blog running for quite a long time! ;-)

It's just that when I sit down to write lately, the only thing that comes to me is an image of myself yelling out a simple phrase. An unrealistic and inappropriate phrase, probably born out of frustration, that just won't leave me alone! Maybe by writing it here and releasing it I will get another image

Come Home!!!!!

Most people that know JH, know that when they said they loved or missed him, he would most often reply with "I love you more!" or "I miss you more!". I think it is safe to say, John Henry, that:

WE miss YOU more!

Thanks Giving - Pay it Forward

Last week was Thanksgiving in the US. It's a day where Americans, watch football, eat turkey, and spend time with family and friends, kicking off the holiday season. Inevitably, it's also a time when many, including myself, take stock of all they have to be grateful for.

Some years this is a larger challenge than others. It's sometimes hard to push past the things in life that make us unhappy to get to the things we are truly thankful for. We all have true blessings in our lives both great and small, but when times are difficult it becomes more important to focus on our blessings. I always say that life is in the details - it is the little things that we often pass off in our daily living of life that really end up becoming the fabric of it.

John Henry, undoubtedly, gave each of us gifts and blessings both great and small. Below is a short list of things that I am grateful for because of JH:

Meeting him
Seeing him perform - everywhere
Meeting,loving, and being embraced by his MSU Family
Sleepovers
Long outdoor lunches during the work day
Meeting Kevin
Schmoopie
Him becoming part of my family and I becoming part of his
Hummingbirds and Arizona
Fire Island
Bear Hugs
Animal Sound Effects
My Kangaroo Paw Bottle Opener
Orange
Spontaneous singing and dancing
Being a Cupcake

My list could go on for a while and I'm sure that each of you have a list just as endearing, strange, and personal. I hope you will share some of your lists with me by replying to this post! ;-)

But the thing that I'm most grateful for right now regarding John Henry is his desire to make the world a better place. He wanted to have a good life and did a good job living one. But he also wanted other people to live a happy life and would often do little things for people to help them do that, thus making the world a better place one little detail at a time. He would, as I and others have said, pay it forward.

Remember: Thanksgiving is not only a proper noun - it's a verb, requiring action. So during the holiday season and throughout the year, give thanks for all you are grateful for and pay it forward, in the spirit of John Henry.

Halloween IS the Orange Holiday!

Happy Halloween from JHO and EMO!

It's Halloween - the orange holiday - and I'm really missing John Henry. I really needed a laugh and since I was bored at work today because there were no JHO instant messages coming in, :-( I decided that I needed a little entertainment - JHO Style. So, please enjoy the "Disco Divas" showing you how it's done. John Henry LOVED Halloween, as you all know, so I figured we should all have a smile on our faces today and what better way to get one than by watching him make us laugh. ENJOY!

P.S. I didn't plan the orange shirt - it must have been meant to be! ;-)

Wedding Crashers - as posted by Tara Cruser-Moss

John Henry and I worked at Resorts International in Atlantic City as Cheerleaders for the Griffin Games. We usually dressed in the appropriate costumes but one Saturday we were scheduled to emcee a high-end slot tournament, which required me to wear an evening gown and JH to wear a suit. When we finished up at around 7pm, we decided to walk over to the Trump Taj Mahal for something to eat at the Hard Rock or at the Deli.

When we got to the Taj we walked past a banquet room. We could see the buffet table full of awesome food. JH looked at me with this devilish smile and put his arm out. We ate their food and drank their champagne...it was fabulous! At one point, the bride was dancing with JH and I was dancing with the groom. We closed the joint and nobody ever even knew we had crashed the wedding! It was absolutely one of the best times in my life. What a blast! I regret not mentioning this to John Henry. I had meant to a few times, especially after the "Wedding Crashers" movie came out. This is one of many fun memories I have with John Henry Rew III. He always found a way to have fun in the little things. I can't tell you how many little things we did together that ended up being the BEST TIME of my life. I miss my dear friend... there was nobody like him. I will forever cherish this memory and I look forward to seeing him again so we can laugh together.

"A Look, Which Said As Plainly As a Thousand Words" as posted by Greg Z.

As I was deciding what to do for a posting for Forever Orange, I knew I wanted to gather a bunch of pictures that I had of John Henry. Some I had taken, some that have been shared by family and friends, and also some of his professional head-shots...(SOME OF THESE ARE REALLY BEAUTIFUL!)

I knew I wanted to keep what I actually wrote short and sweet. Like the expression: "a picture paints a thousand words," I wanted this collage of our friend to speak to you, and I trust it will, much more than I could say here today, even if I DID write a thousand words.

I decided to Google the phrase, "a picture paints a thousand words", to see if I got any further ideas or insights. I found this very interesting entry right away:

"A PICTURE PAINTS A THOUSAND WORDS"
"Meaning:
A picture tells a story just as well as a large amount of descriptive text."
"Origin:
There are several varieties of this phrase, including 'a picture is worth a thousand words'.
The first time a form of the phrase appears in print is in James Kirke Paulding's New Mirror for Travellers, 1828: "A look, which said as plainly as a thousand words."

I liked that! And how fitting for our John Henry...EVERY LOOK he gave, EVER gave ANYONE, was certainly said 'AS PLAINLY AS A THOUSAND WORDS'...OR EVEN MORE!

So please enjoy these "looks of the love" John Henry gave to you and the world -
and think of all the words they are being said plainly to you!

Comments are more than welcomed here...if you have any words that you want to share that came to you as you looked at these pictures.

meow, meow, meow, meow, I miss you John Henry, meow...
Toonces & Greg (AKA Greggy)

Goooooo....MAVERICKS!

mav·er·ick (māv'ər-ĭk, māv'rĭk) adj. 1. Being independent in thought and action or exhibiting such independence. noun. 2. One that refuses to abide by the dictates of or resists adherence to a group.

This week, The Mavericks are in Arizona for the Gay Softball World Series. John Henry had been looking forward to this trip - a chance for a long-anticipated visit to his parents, John and Helen, in Scottsdale, and a fun trip with his softball brothers and sisters.

I'm sure the trip is bitter sweet for the Mavs, but it could not come at a better time. Their visit to the Southwest is a gift for John Henry's family to, again, share in a much-loved part of his life with some of the people who love him the most.

It is so fitting that John Henry would be part of a team called the Mavericks. Anyone that knew him would understand why. One of his greatest gifts was his ability to exhibit his independence and live out loud, not by anyone elses rules, but by his own. This quality was, no doubt, inspiring and infectious to those around him. There is no telling how many people may have been impacted by his unassuming example of this, but I feel that it may be one of the many ripples that emanate out from his life - touching many people for a long time to come.

So...as the Mavericks get out there and play like there's no tomorrow, I'm sure John Henry is with them, cheering them on. The Forever Orange community is all rooting for you, Mavericks, so you better kick ass and take names! :-P

Farewell Penthouse

This weekend will mark the end of an era - John Henry's family is closing up the 8Th Avenue "penthouse." I know John Henry would LOVE that I'm calling it that! ;-P

I say it's the end of an era because as most of you know the many large and small gatherings held there could be compared to an era. Like the last days of disco - the times, the people, the memories are like no other and can never be duplicated.

The hardest part is not going there anymore. Being in his space just brings to mind all the Scrabble games played on the floor in front of the fireplace, the packed parties where there were so many people you could barely move from one end of the apartment to the other, and the evenings spent on the deck just having drinks and chilling out. I will miss the way I feel when I stand in the bedroom that he painted because he "wanted to feel like he was at the beach." Whether it be Hawaii or Fire Island, his mission was accomplished!

One of my fondest memories at the apartment was when I sat on the white flokati rug with John Henry, David, and Kevin and just lounging in front of the fire place, told them I was taking them all to see Madonna in concert for their respective birthdays. It was a big deal to me because, at a time when I was broke and was not going to be able to go to one of her concerts, they all chipped in and had bought me a ticket. Now, at a better time in my life, I had the chance to repay what to me was a very sweet gift. I will never forget the looks on their faces as we lounged on that rug and the happiness I felt just seeing it. It wouldn't seem like much to someone else, but it is a memory that keeps coming back to me these past few weeks and making me smile inside.

The nice thing is that even though we will miss the irreplaceable time we have spent there, we are keeping those memories when we walk out of that orange hallway. They won't be contained in those walls but, as John Henry reminds us, within each of us.

What are some of your favorite memories of the 8Th Avenue apartment?

The Boy Posse

This weekend I will travel to Milford, PA; the new-ish home of my dear friend Greg (http://www.gzuk.com/), to celebrate his birthday. I will go and hang there with my beloved boy posse. What straight woman doesn't want to surround herself with handsome, witty, and intelligent men - even if they are gay? Unfortunately, my posse is now one boy short.

The last time I was with the full boy posse was the last weekend in July to celebrate my birthday. The posse converged at my house on a beautiful Saturday morning for a day at the beach. We packed up the cars and set off for the sun, sand, and surf of Island Beach State Park.

It was a great day! There is nothing better than spending time in the place you love most with the people you love most. The water was perfect - warm enough to stay in for hours, cool enough to keep the jellyfish at bay. Everyone enjoyed the water, but John Henry and I stayed in for hours. We talked about future collaborations for our businesses, the big move to Australia, and stopping at the fish market on the way home because he was craving clams. All this while we jumped the waves way out in the ocean. In his very John Henry way, when a big wave would come he would dive underneath it and come bursting out the top with his leg up in the air and his arms fluttering into a contorted pose - an impromptu interpretive water ballet. We would crack up laughing, as usual. My favorite, though, was when he burst out of the water with both arms high over his head and at the highest point he would open them in a sweeping motion as if presenting me with the world - it was his sun salutation. Such a fitting pose for his personality.

We only left the water when the lifeguards closed down the beach due to impending thunderstorms, but our first stop was the fish market where John Henry bought a bag of 100 little neck clams. We brought them home, cooked em' up, and had a feast. We spent the night playing games, teasing my dogger - Bailey, and enjoying the cupcakes he had brought all the way down from the city on a bus.

My boy posse, as usual, wrapped me in a blanket of love - a sun salutation. I've just started back to Yoga this week and each time I do the sun salutation, I now think of that glorious day. So this weekend I will wrap one of the longest members of my boy posse in a blanket of love and start on the next set of memories. I hope you all are doing the same with your respective "posses."

The Rainbow Connection

The last few weeks have been like no other in my life. I'm a 37 year old woman and have experienced a great deal of loss in those years. Yet, none had prepared me for the passing of my best friend, John Henry Rew.

Simply put:

To know him, is to love him.

Our red-headed hottie with a personality to match, was the king of fabulosity and fun. He enjoyed life, and his enthusiasm and passion were contagious. It was hard to spend time with him and not feel good about yourself. His love of all things Orange was just an extension of his fiery wit, mischievous personality, and fantastic style. John Henry made everyday a party.

His friend Annie Lawrence recently described him as "...the soul of generosity." Always willing to listen and advise, open his home to friends and strangers alike, and go the extra mile to show you the more optimistic side of life, John Henry made deep, lasting impressions on all who knew him.

During the gathering after his funeral service, I had the unexpected honor of toasting our boy. Not having much notice, I really didn't know what I would say. And although I gave my best heartfelt toast, raising our glasses "to the orange", there is something deeper that has stayed with me.

I looked out on a large group of people; Family, childhood friends, college classmates, colleagues, teamates, and his beloved partner, Colin - A wide cross-section of people as diverse as the colors of the rainbow flag he loved to adorn himself with. And I was and am moved to have seen all his community in one place, connected to eachother by his beautiful orange aura. A true gift to us all in a time of great sadness and confusion.

I hope that this blog will be an instrument to keep our connection alive in his honor. A place to Share our stories, pictures, videos, thoughts, and lessons. A place to continue to be his community together.

"...Someday we'll find it, the Rainbow Connection. The lovers, the dreamers, and me."