Aaron's 35th Birthday Jan. 12 2005
Remembering Aaron was a memorial for January 12th, what would have been Aaron's 35th birthday.
It was an intimate gathering of relatives and friends--including Faith, who helped us set up and blow up balloons!--at Women and Children First Bookstore (W&CF) on January 16th, 2005, organized by both kid sister extraordinaire Karen and Mom. Yet another thank you to W&CF for being so gracious as to let us use their space to remember Aaron. I think he would have especially approved of the standup photo of Buffy that oversaw the gathering :>! We gave her a balloon to hold while we all drank coffee and ate Chicago's own Matt's chocolate chip cookies. Plus, we were pleasantly surprised by a lovely bouquet of flowers from another Chicago's own, the Thousand Waves Martial Arts and Self-Defense Center.
We shared some letters from friends who couldn't be there and I read one of Aaron's first "blog" entries ever, the library anecdote of his Saturday, April 24, 1999 entry at his Stone Cold Jane Austen site--which I duly prefaced with an apologetic disclaimer to any Minnesotans in the audience!
In the background was a CD I made of some of Aaron's favorite songs and artists, including the song from Aaron's December 05, 2003 Choose your destiny entry. Naturally there was also Mindy Smith's Come to Jesus and Shakira's Ojos Asi.
Karen talked about she and Aaron meeting Neil Gaiman completely by chance a few years ago (which Aaron mentions offhandedly in the comments for this entry), and she also brought along an old McDade school newsletter she found in a box in her latest move, which both announced Aaron joining WBEZ and doing skits with other Chicago schoolkids on Saturday mornings (I most remember a skit Aaron did where he played a kid addicted to television, and he had this line, "Go on, Don Pardo, tell him what he won!"), and which also had part one of a story he'd written. We don't have part two--but then, I'm not sure McDade put out another newsletter that year and had part two--!
It was fun, and we missed those who couldn't make it, but perhaps we'll do it all again next year. Thanks to everyone who attended, who were there in person or only in spirit.