I awoke this morning to a MySpace message alerting me to the very sudden loss of a much beloved friend (to leukemia).

I don't know that many of you knew her, but Evie (Evette Carrano) was one of the sweetest, warmest, kindest, most selfless, emotionally generous, supportive and loving people I have ever had the pleasure to know.

We met a little over ten years ago as the respective tagalongs of two of our friends who were very briefly screwing around. It would be an understatement to suggest that our friendship was instantaneous and was made of far greater substance than the circumstances which began it. She was having "boy troubles" at the time, and I was happy to provide a shoulder to cry on, and a drink to numb her sadness.

Over the years, we always found the time hang out and celebrate our friendship, and she always had an ear and a sympathetic word for my self obsessed woes of relationship troubles.

When she decided several years ago to relocate to Chicago (she had been living with her family in St. Charles previously), I insisted that she take a vacant apartment below the one that I was then inhabiting. I'm eternally grateful that I did. For the next year and a half, there was scarcely a day when I didn't go for a leisurely walk and have coffee with her (no matter how busy either of us was). She helped me clean my apartment (and for anyone who knew me before I started a family, this gesture alone speaks of an almost Christlike selflessness), and we roughhoused brutally with each other's cats.

She was among the most family oriented people I've ever known - absolutely adored her family, and took such great pride in her young nieces and nephews.

As she tirelessly worked at her career (as a massage therapist, she developed a taste for life on the road - and inevitably branched out into other areas of the touring life, such as merchandise, and tour management...such was the demand that her musician friends had for simply having her around), and as I found myself starting a family, we had less and less time to talk and to see each other. Our infrequent conversations were as wonderful as ever, and our last few were entirely centered on how eager she was to meet my son and my bride to be.

I'm just sorry we don't have her around anymore. She was an exceptionally darling human being.