“The greatest tribute to the dead is not grief, but gratitude,” Thornton Wilder once wrote.

Two months in, my grief for losing my best friend Chris is still ever-present. Nevertheless, realizing that painful separation was always going to be an inevitable price for attachment, I started attempting to derail the train of sorrow onto the path of gratitude.

Chris’s arrival and presence in my life sparked countless joyful moments. He got me through difficult times, not by doing anything extraordinary, but by just being there. He was an inspiration too. You’re here listening to this show because Chris was there at the beginning with me in 2016, brainstorming how I might go about creating and branding it.

For all of these things and everything else, I made this mix to say: thank you for all of it Chris! For the ups and downs, for the highs and lows, for the sights and sounds, for the inspiration to be all I can be, for believing in me and pushing me to realize my potential.

And… I even tucked in here your favorite song: “When She Loved Me”. They played it at your funeral’s closing ceremony. I will always remember how the last piano note of this song and subsequent silence made me feel then: like it was curtains closing on our lives together. But now I realize it was the beginning of my journey to find you again, through sheer gratitude for our time together.

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Tracklist

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04:43

08:28

11:04

13:01

17:18

19:93

22:37

26:45

28:08

29:45

32:30

32:55

33:56

38:32

40:48

46:40

47:30

51:59

54:53