The first time I met him I was a sophomore at college. I had just depledged a fraternity and was looking for a place to live. You see, in my infinite wisdom as a 19 year-old I had decided to live in the on-campus fraternity floor in a dorm while I was a pledge. After depledging, I needed to get out of that living situation fast. Luckily, I found a room with a spare bed in on another floor of the dorm I was living. So I packed up my stuff and moved. I remember taking the elevator up to the 6th floor where my new room was located. As the door opened, there was this kid doing a handstand and spinning around on his head in the middle of the common area right in front of me. As a saw this I asked myself “Is this the floor where all the up and coming carne folk live?”. All of the sudden, the kid stopped…turned around, and said with a massive grin on his face “What’s up? I’m Loren…care for a spin”. That was how I met Loren Waage who became one of my best friends. He passed away last week, the details of how and why are unimportant.
Loren never ceased to amaze and surprise me with his caring and free spirit and ability to relate to and charm anyone (especially the ladies). To refer to him as someone who “marches to the beat of different drummer” or is “unpredictable” is really to misrepresent and misunderstand him. Spend anytime with him and you know how comfortable and relaxed he made people feel, how truly at ease with themselves he made them feel. He brought out the best in people, always.
Therefore, this post is dedicated to him and to the memories and experiences that I was fortunate enough to share with him over the past decade (too many to recount). They are moments that I will never forget and that have helped shape who I am as a person. For that, I am eternally grateful.
To say that I am sad that he is gone doesn’t go far enough…its more of a loss, as if the world, even down here in Peru is slightly different, a little more grey, a little more stale with him gone. While this emptiness is upsetting, I have to believe that Loren and his passing were part of some unintelligible system of the cosmos. I believe Loren was too big a person for this world. His caring and giving spirit were too much for this place. I relish in the times I have shared with him, retreat to them when I need a laugh or a smile and will remember them forever.
If can just indulge in one wish as a final closing to this post, it is that our path’s cross again and I get the privilege of hearing that addictive laugh once again and maybe, just maybe, having a cold one together.
To Loren…great guy, best friend, true brother.
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| Loren (on right), Danny and Myself...does that dude ever stop smiling!!!! |
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| I think that fish bought Loren a drink later on the evening. |
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| Pile of stones at 16,000 feet in the Colca Valley, Peru. A small monument to big guy. |
