Day 28: Todd Agan

Day 28 is a shout-out to my good friend, Todd. I miss him! He is living his dream of interpreting for a doctor in another state. I was so sad to see him go, but thrilled that he would have the opportunity to do exactly what he wanted to do.

Todd and I moved in the same circles in the Portland Deaf community for a long time, just sort of skirting each other. We had met a few times but only in giant crowds of people. The cement came when I was a student at WOU and he was an interpreter there. I think when we finally realized we were running with the same crew, things gelled. We told some stories and laughed a lot.

We were invited to Amy's birthday and from then on, we were friends with the whole crowd. Todd and I particularly got along and found that we were both Cancers and that we both had a particular dislike of Christmas and the way people go crazy over it.

Todd and I share a love of theatre, both seeing it and interpreting it. He went to the Interpreting for the theatre program and so did I. We love similar shows and interpreted a bunch of them together. I was there when he found out that his mom had died, he was so good to me when people in my life died. Our humor got us through a lot of those difficult moments. He was there through the "anger" phase of my grief and didn't think any less of me (although it did make for a couple of FUNNY stories).

One time, we were interpreting a children's show of "The Velveteen Rabbit". We went to the first of our rehearsals as the actors were doing their run throughs in a rehearsal space. There were no real costumes or props or real set pieces, but as I watched this sweet musical production, I started to cry. By the end, I was crying really hard, trying not to be noticed in the broad daylight. Todd kept looking over at me and finally, he signed, "Are you all right?" I nodded and blew my nose. He looked at me strangely and looked away. He kept checking on me and afterwards, teased me unmercifully. That would have been that, except that I cried EVERY SINGLE TIME we saw the show - even when we were interpreting. Todd just laughed and didn't say anything after a while. That was just Jean being Jean, I think...

I don't get to see Todd very often, but when I saw him in the summer this year, it was like he had never been away at all. We all came together and told the same silly stories and lauged and laughed and the love we all feel for him just emanated out.

I know I'm not being very articulate about this Thank You - I have all these visual memories and stories but none of them will come to my fingertips. I will share more if they come out today.

Todd, I am so happy that you are happy. I know you are doing what you love and that you sacrificed a lot to do it. I admire that and I admire you for doing it. I miss you all the time, but I know that we will be friends for a long time to come. Take care of yourself and stay in touch!