was successfully added to your cart.

As I sit in my apartment—with moving boxes stacked to the ceiling in preparation for my move to the NJ suburbs—I can’t help but reflect on all that will have taken place in 13 months.

By the middle of October, I will have married the love of my life, sold my Manhattan apartment of seven years, bought a suburban condo in New Jersey, welcomed the birth of my daughter, and lost my very close friend David Price.

Dave and I met at an industry event back in 2004. We shared a lot in common and hit it off immediately. Within a month of meeting, I actually wound up going to work with him at Hotbar, and our friendship pursued.

That year I spent working with Dave was a blast. When you are a 26-year-old single guy in NYC, your sole purpose in life is to “work hard and play even harder.” Dave and I did exactly that.

As I write this, numerous nights we shared out together flood through my head. Through every one of them, no matter if it was just me and him or a group of 50, I always remember Dave as the one having a ton of fun and, more importantly, making sure everyone else with him was having even more fun than he was.

I’m sure many people would share that same sentiment. That’s why it’s all the more unbelievable that someone as happy and fun-loving as Dave was could get to a place of despair where they felt they had no options.

I’m all too familiar with depression. There was a time when I hit a rut in life where things weren’t going my way. It was actually Dave who I remember really being by my side. Through his support and the support of my family and friends, I got through it and was able to remove the subjective ways I was thinking and saw all that I had to look forward to in life.

Unless you’ve experienced depression, you wouldn’t fully understand it. It’s like the needle of a record getting caught in a groove, and it just keeps repeating and repeating the same chord with no chance of fixing it on its own. I only wish we had more time to have helped Dave get out of that groove.

I think of Dave daily without fail. There are some times when I hear an inappropriate joke, have the chance to play basketball, or have some sort of extracurricular activity that would be that much better if Dave could’ve been there to share it with me, because I know he would have enjoyed it as much as I did. All I’m left with at those moments is me shaking my head, saddened by how senseless it is that he’s not here.

I can’t say enough about how strong a man Tim Price is. There are few people that I know personally who I am in awe of, and he is one of them. I truly mean that. He is a man who has loved and lost, like most of us could never imagine, but has the strength and perseverance to make sure Dave’s spirit lives on with LIPF. If through his efforts with the LIPF even one person sees the light at the end of the tunnel and the choices they have, it will be all worth it. I look forward to continuing to help support Tim’s good works.

The picture on this page was taken at my wedding in August of 2011. Make no mistake: Dave was already having those feelings of despair. I had been trying to talk through them with him in the few weeks prior to my wedding. I remember a couple of nights before the wedding that he refused to talk anymore about himself because they were the days leading up to my big day, and it should be about me. I told him that even while I was walking to the altar and he needed me, I’d be there for him and to never think twice about that fact and the fact that he had 50 other people in life who’d say the same thing.

I knew he wasn’t in the best place mentally right then, but I do remember spending some great moments with him throughout the night, and what’s even better is to be able to look back at my wedding video and be able to see that dimpled smile we all knew and loved.

It may sound cliché, but although I miss him every day, I do take some comfort in the fact that he’s in a better place now with his mom in heaven and will never experience that pain and despair again.

I was going to end this blog post with saying something that only he and I would actually get, but instead I think of it in my head with a smile across my face and picture him doing the same.

Love you, Dave.