Words by Ole · edited excerpt from his Instagram post
This Garbicz was a hard one to go to but I did leave lighter.
I didn't know if I was ready. Nico passed just before.
My last post on this grid wasn't a tribute. I didn't know he was dead. I posted it the same morning he was found, hours before the news reached me. The universe has its funky ways.
I haven't written a tribute yet. The first wave was todos and holding friends and family. I didn't process it. Then the day before Garbicz my body went: hey bro, what about some tears. And I cried for hours. Really cried, for the first time.
He isn't the first friend to shift form like this, so I knew this thing. But when I was asked to speak at his memorial I felt honored yet also the weight. What do you even say? Death is a sharp teacher yet a real one and grief makes it hard to think clear.
So I didn't write anything. I trusted the words would find their way through me. Hold the space as real and true as I can, pay tribute, stay honest. I don't recall what I said but I knew where I was speaking from was real.
Death somehow leaves something open. A portal. A reminder of our limited time and of the wonder that we get to know we exist at all. That's the only thing we know. We do exist. And from there we choose. Love, failure, champagne, music, friends. We forget that.
Thank you Nico for bringing all of us together. I'll miss your word plays. Thank you Garbicz for creating the space. We need new rituals for death, ones that reflect the nature of the people who pass on.
After the ceremony I hugged KOTOE first, then Mimi Love, who didn't know how to play a set after that. Then she played. And we danced. Grief turned into music and art and community and connection.
We do exist.
We can rest in that knowing. And we all die one day, and it isn't the opposite of life. It's the continuation of that formless self that looks through us and knows: I am.
Rest in peace, Nico. 🖤
