One year ago, but it seems like yesterday...
It was a year ago today that the world lost my friend, student, training partner and, yes, teacher, Anwar Leonard. I had no idea that much time had passed. I think of him often and I feel his absence constantly so in a sense, that moment of loss is still present and ongoing. It hit hard a couple of weeks ago when the news broke that Chris Cornell had taken his own life in Detroit. It wasn't so painful just because he was famous. It was painful because I am close to people who were close to him. One of the DJ's on KEXP that day described Seattle as not so much a small city as a big neighborhood and it's hard to go far without running into someone who has a great memory or story about Chris. That was so true about Anwar. His family took a couple of weeks to process as well as they could the loss of their son and then put one foot in front of the other and arranged a memorial. For the friends mostly... we needed to remember him out loud and we needed to let them know h...