Pepper.

I literally cried.  Tears welled up in my eyes as my face tensed.  A frown with a smile at the tips showed the seemingly contradictory emotions of surprising sadness and utter joy as we hugged for the last time.  I felt as though I might crash into the ground as Pepper walked off to the plane.  

Since Pepper moved to Esterillos a few short months ago, she has touched the lives of all of us with her sincere smile, her infectious laugh, and her loving and lovable spirit.  I fell head over heels in love with her almost immediately.  Working only Monday nights at the bar, I ensured I was there with her - not for support but just to have the opportunity to be around her.  Monday nights led us to a friendship that has blessed me ever since.  I had the opportunity to see her fall in love with Oz, which, as Pat puts it, is perhaps the best couple the world has known.  We experienced an overwhelming love together in roadtrips with Oz, Scott, and Jeni, first to Atenas and then to Manuel Antonio.  We've danced on the streets together, gotten high off of water vapor together, surfed, worked, laughed, cried, loved, seen Scott strip in front of Ozzie's mom, bitched, high-fived, dined, and had Cuba Libres out of a can on the sidewalk in front of a grocery store in Parrita together.  We danced to Michael Jackson after his death, and took on Oz in the first and perhaps only Boogie Days tournament in front of the Lowtide.  A lifetime of memories from only a few short months.  

The sadness comes not from a sense of loss, as neither Pepper nor any of our experiences together were mine or were permanent, but simply from a separation from a dear sweet friend who seemed to know me better than I knew myself at times.  But it fails in comparison to the joy I have for the time we have spent together, and the life-long impact she will continue to have on me.  I'll miss her, that is for sure, but it's wonderful to have had someone like Pepper in my life to miss.