The Best of Us

On Friday night I finished up a joyful volunteer shift in the warm, well-lit snack shack at the high school playoff game. I opened my phone to track down my boys and instead found an email that had me gasp, frozen and then without words. I walked out of a conversation, into the cold dark night and just held my phone up to Mike. The email was brief: Roy Huggins just died.

Someone dies, it’s often a shock. Over the past 21 months I’ve had the opportunity to be shocked by the death of three men I’ve known. Three husbands of dear friends. A classmate of H&E died eleven days ago. Death has been a foundational part of most people’s last 21 months.

Roy, though, Roy was mine.

The first days of grad school are a blur and I will leave those with better memories than mine to knit together the stories of how a group of naval-gazing, budding therapists turned into a study group that met at bars and led to significantly less studying and significantly more self-analysis, over sharing and group processing. In our grad program there was a required process group experience with classmates, led by a professor. Somehow our sub-cohort landed in the last term - which was tough because we all spent so much time doing this activity on our own. I felt care-takey bad for the few people who weren’t part of our core group that first night because we had a flow and shortcuts and established relationships. We were a thing, a group with its own internal energy that fed, grew and changed us.

Not that we all knew each other inside and out. Or that we all were the perfect fit for each other. As happens in the way of school and work, the universe throws you with the people you need. Roy was one of the people we all needed. He was a person the world needed. I wish I could tell you about him in a way that you could experience his energy, but I can only describe him in how he impacted me. He was a bear of a man - large in stature, huge in ideas, quick minded and gentle in his feedback.

Until Friday, I did not know the impact of truth when someone says, “The world lost a good one” or “He was the best of us.” But the world did and he was. As Mike said, Roy was so patient, un-offensive and unoffendable. (If you know Mike, he is none of these. Each year Roy had Mike speak to his ethics class about the intersection of Family Law and Therapy, so they had significant experience with each other’s energies. Somehow it worked for both of them. The mutual appreciation always made me feel good.)

I’ve known Roy since 2004. We had two intense years of grad school, less intense years of internships, baby shower (me), wedding (Roy and Electra). Consultation groups, a side project that didn’t launch and then a business for Roy that did. He founded Person-Centered Tech, a company that guided therapists through all the tech stuff (and HIPAA, ugh) that is so hard for us to grok. I was his beta tester for his early courses and a supporter of all that he did. When the business evolved I played a small active role but always looked for ways to support him because I believed in what he was doing.

This has been my biggest take away from the last few days: Roy was a person you could believe in. I say it again, because this is why his death is so profound to me: He was the one person I truly believed in - his business, his perspective and his way of being in the world. I cannot explain why this is true, perhaps if you know Roy you will get it. And maybe you feel the same way.

The last conversation we had was about his work, as it had been for the last few years. I asked him to call me so I could stick my nose in his business with information I had and unsolicited business suggestions. After I finished telling him what he should do he said, “We love you, Lindsay.” I knew he meant they valued me or my insight or my insider information, but I said, “I love you, and you guys, too.” We had further text exchanges where I continued to tell him what to do, but I am very thankful that was the way we ended our last verbal exchange.

I miss Roy and cannot believe he is gone. It feels funny to lay this all out there for people who didn’t know Roy, but if you have ever known a really good one - patient, kind, thoughtful, funny, warm, smarter than most but who lead with a humble heart - you may understand. It is well-lit on Monday morning as I write this, but I am still shaken and part of me is cold at the world’s loss of my friend.

We’ll keep going, but the best of us is gone.