Peregrinator, Rest in Peace

[HeavyStick]

Rest in Peace

 

[_Milky_Whites_]

I have not been here in a LONG time. I was once a frequent visitor. And Perg was one of my faves. He was genuine, intelligent and so kind. I popped in today, impulsively, and I found this. It saddens me. I hope that his family knows how loved he was, that it brings them a tiny bit of comfort. I wish that he could have known as well, that he could see the stamp he left on others. Rest easy my friend.

 

[stickwork]

Can't fucking believe this. Thought it was some goddamn joke. Wish it was.

 

[Lorilei]

Me too. I still miss him.

 

[thør]

Me too. I still miss him.

You aren't alone.

 

[bodysong]

- with everything that has happened in the world, I feel my sense of time has been distorted-

He has been gone forever, and at the same time, he just left, this past week

 

[great lover]

Sad to learn about Perg. He was always a gentleman.

 

[great lover]

Thank you all for being here to help to remember and celebrate the life of [Perg]. It’s wonderful – though unsurprising – to see how many folks have come to
pay their respects to him. Some of you are family, some of you are friends, but we all loved [Perg]. Today, we will talk and remember, laugh together, cry together.
We’ll share our stories of [Perg] being [Perg] -- hopeless practical jokester, loyal friend, the life of every party.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m [HungryJoe]. I met [Perg] in college. He was my flatmate’s boyfriend, so he was really my roommate, too.
When we were first getting to know each other, I remember thinking, “Wow. This guy is a lot.” He had a knack for inviting people to hang out at our apartment
just when I really needed to study, and there were so many practical jokes. Overly-serious college sophomore [HungryJoe] often bristled at him,
but over the past 35 years, we became and stayed the closest of friends.

[Perg] lived a remarkable and accomplished life. He did things that many – most – of us would dismiss out of hand as unattainable. In 2005, he traveled with the
Harvard Mountaineering Club to a remote and profoundly isolated part of the Central Borkoldoy Mountain Range in Kyrgyzstan as the expedition medic.
He summitted – all by himself – a 15,000 foot mountain that had never before seen human footprints. It is now known as Peak [Peregrinator].

Not everyone can – or would – name a mountain after themselves, but don’t get the wrong idea about him: many of his accomplishments, his adventures,
were in service of others. I can’t say enough about this. One of his first jobs after graduating from college was teaching at Riverside School in
Lowell, Massachusetts, where he worked with at-risk youths who were often survivors of the worst kinds of neglect and abuse. It was a difficult job,
but he loved it, and it was his first experience with teaching, which would become a theme and passion for the rest of his life.

He served his country as a member of the armed forces, which -- in true [Perg] style -- he joined just as he was about to age out of eligibility.
Working with infantrymen often 20 years his junior, he could easily have been a fish out of water, but [Perg] related easily to everyone, and he quickly
became the well-respected leader of his mortar team.

He served the people of Haiti, volunteering to provide medical care in the wake of the cataclysmic earthquake that struck there in 2010.
He supported, stood with and healed protestors at Standing Rock in 2015. He was always ready to head out on mountain search-and-rescue missions whenever
the call came. He also served nature, transporting wounded animals to rehabilitation facilities.

He’s also nearly single-handedly responsible for a certain allergy-ridden, asthmatic couch potato becoming a rock climber, confident solo hiker and all-around
enthusiast for adventure and the outdoors.

But is there anything more remarkable than that over the course of several decades, he found, then lost, and found again his soulmate? If I’d seen it in a book,
I would have wondered how I came to be reading a Nicholas Sparks novel. But it’s true, and it has afforded me a measure of hope, even when life has been most
trying, when the chaos of the world has been most pressing, that two people, both so kind, and generous, and good found each other, strengthened each other,
and loved each other.

As I said earlier, today is about us being together. Tomorrow is when the hard part begins: living with the continuing, every day realization that he is gone.
Time and grieving have a way of blunting the pain, slowly. Time will pass, grief will recede, memories will soften, and as it is often and simply said,
life will go on. That’s not to say that any one of us will ever forget [Perg], but I know that I’ll be losing an important part of myself if I let him slip
too far into mere memory. Hellen Keller wrote: "With every friend I love who has been taken into the brown bosom of the earth
a part of me has been buried there; but their contribution to my being of happiness, strength and understanding remains to sustain me in an altered world."

I am planning to keep him an on-going part of my everyday life. I’m not suggesting that anyone should go get a tattoo, but I suspect some of you will anyway.
What I mean is that I’m taking some of what I have learned from him and some of the traits that made him so uniquely himself, and I am incorporating them
into my life:

Learn greedily, and teach generously.

Feeling sad? Go outside. Take a long walk, observe nature carefully, and be filled with wonder and gratitude.

Listen to music. Not as the background to some chore, but as a prayer, a meditation on humanity’s ability to create transcendent beauty.

Read, broadly and deeply, as way to better understand the world and yourself.

Be kind. Be honest, too, but kind first and last.

Travel. Travel more. Keep travelling.

Remember that if things aren’t quite going your way, you’re having an adventure.

Embrace being a work in progress.

Above all else, forgive yourself, and let regret be the most fleeting of emotions.


Everyone, I expect, will have their own list like this, and I’m eager to hear what is on yours.

In closing, I’d like to share with you a quote from one of [Perg's] favorite authors, Hunter S. Thompson, that I believe crystalizes who he was and how
he lived his remarkable life:
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!"

Nice!

 

[great lover]

Another memory of Perg is that he traveled from the great north west to Washington D.C to attend Obama's inauguration.

 

[Plasmaball]

This is the most lit feeling thread on here since I ventured around. Shame it's about perg. I don't have those connections like others but I know he was a good person in and out.

 

[Noor]

I still have some ornamental spears in my storage locker that Perg was supposed to pick up a while back and was going to eventually.
I might use them as curtain rods in memory.

 

[patient1]

Long-time GB poster Peregrinator passed away early Sunday morning, unexpectedly. I'm not sure if he had been an active participant here recently or not, but some of you may remember him.

Sorry, not much more to say about it for me. He was one of the finest people that I have ever known and was a peerless friend.

I've been lamenting his absence for years. Glad to learn that he was good in person.
Thanks for letting us know that he isn't alive anymore and won't return.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Jeez what a bummer. Good guy