Its almost 11 in the morning and I found out about an hour ago that my friend Ari Keever has died. Since, I have been wandering around my apartment, from couch to bathroom to blow my nose back to couch to curl up under a blanket and cry. I wander to the kitchen and stare at the half eaten orange I’d cut up before my friend Cliff sent me that text. Im going between feelings of shock and disbelief to puddles of snot and tears. Ari was a good friend. I don’t mean that like, she was a good friend of mine, but some one who was a good friend to everyone. She had a really full heart and wasn’t afraid to show people that she loved them. '“I love people,” I remember her saying. She did. She really just wanted to show love and she was good at accepting it too.
I am wracked with regret. Our paths began crossing at the end of last year in ways that seemed coincidental and ridiculous and made us both laugh. I saw her first; she was acting in “The Wolves,” a Boise Contemporary Theater play that ran last fall. It was about a girls soccer team, and the whole thing took place on a set made of astroturf. She was loud and vibrant, her character a steadfast and strong member of the team- good natured and mostly untouched by conflict. It was a sad play that ended with one of her teammates dying unexpectedly and a grief ridden mother’s monologue.
The next time I saw Ari, was the following week. She was sitting at the first high top and best spot at the Mad Swede Open mic. Her hair, which had been pulled into a bun or high pony tail for the play was down and she was strikingly beautiful. She laughed her loud booming laugh throughout the set. Kat, the bartender at Mad Swede and also a comic, and I had gone to the play together and we huddled in a corner and whispered and pointed at Ari, like star stuck little girls. “She’s so pretty, should we go talk to her?” We worked up the courage and decided the go introduce ourselves together and once we started talking to her, any nervousness I felt any nervousness I had leave me. She immediately started repeating the jokes of ours she liked and laughing loudly about them all over again. She was disarming and clearly, a homie.
The next time we saw each other was either later the same week or the next at a hiring event in a hotel lobby for a bartender position at Voicebox, thekareoke place. We were Bothe wearing black leather jackets and she came over from across the circle and gave me a big hug. Im not really a hugger but Ari is defiantly a hugger, I would later come to find out. We both got hired and we started training and working at Voicebox together the next month. She was definitely the life of training and intimidated me with how funny she was and how easily she seemed to make friends with everyone. She just fit in with everyone, while I grappled with feeling of not belonging, she seemed to be everywhere and with everyone and we sat across from each other at Panda Express and Dharma sushi and at Liquid and she was just there. She showed up. She is one of the only people who showed up to one of my shows later in working together and she asked repeatedly about Sam and when he was coming to town and how I felt about it. She was present and she wore her heart on her sleeve.
Despite all this, I rejected her friendship. Her life was a mess and it constantly showed up at work, which was also a mess and it was too much out of control of me to handle so I did what I do and I put out my hand, not for her to take, but to keep her at a some distance. I remember saying to one of my current friends that I could tell Ari wanted to be friends but that I “wasn’t in the market for a friend.” I had had a lot of friends hurt and disappoint me in the past few years and partly I was protecting myself and partly I just want anymore drama in my life. Despite my coolness towards her she continued to be warm and friendly and herself. And she continued to come and drink late at the bar and bare her heart. She had epilepsy but always insisted that it wasn’t a big deal. I made her repeat to me several times what to do in case she has a seizure. “Turn me on my side, make sure I don’t hit my head, time the seizure, call my emergency contact.”
I stopped writing there and I called Kat, someone else who has tried to be friends but who I have been keeping at a distance. And we reminisced about the play and about meeting Ari for the first time and it felt really good to laugh and to catch up and our conversation ended with podcast and show recommendations and now I feel like eating again and showering. But my hear ti heavy and I will be thinking about Ari for the rest of the day and for a long time to come and I will remember how good of friend she was and hope in her memory to be better.