My sister told me via text message.

My mind reeled with all of the time that I spent with Gord. Climbing at the bluffs in Squamish, at Murrin Park, at Lighthouse Park. The countless hours at the climbing gym. Flying across the country together to Newfoundland, Halifax, climbing a tree with him in Truro and piling into a bed with him in a hotel in St. John's. In his parent's basement in the old house and, later, in the new house. Making a movie for school with him out in the forest in West Van, in costume with a camcorder. Him coming to visit me at my parents house when I had the stomach flu. The house parties, the parties in the woods. In my parents basement, watching a movie, and the slow motion moment that was my first kiss.

I called Adrienne in Edmonton to tell her before she found out some other impersonal way. I got her voice mail - she was teaching her class - and it was the most difficult message that I've ever left. Saying it out loud - Gord passed away this morning - and it suddenly became so, so real. My throat closing up, and again the hot coals piling up there.

Again. Another funeral. And I can't stop thinking about how things always happen in threes.