Before meeting Clare, you’d never spot me in line to purchase a ticket for a horror movie. It didn’t matter tbe flavor. Slasher, creepy, sci-fi monster, or (especially) not torture porn.

Clare loved these flicks, most specifically creepy movies like Paranormal Activity and not torture porn like Saw. For me, Indiana Jones is my liking, or a good comedy like Clerks 2. Not Clare. If not a creepy terror tome, it was Silver Linings Playbook or the Katnis Trilogy.

One night, watching The Forest for the googolth time, she shared something with me, something where my cinematic world view changed forever.

Clare said, “You asked why I like these movies, babe. It’s because of working at CYFD. I couldn’t sleep unless I watched something a little less or a little more horrible than I’ve seen all day at work.”

That night forth, I held her close when we watched a movie you would never spot me lining up for at the Century.

We watched The Forest at the Celebration of the Life of Clare Castellano on Friday. I’m watching Insidious 3 right now. And it’s a heartbreak she’ll not see Insidious the Final Key in the theater, although I believe the trade off of me being baptized covertly will make the Dude happy enough He’ll give her a private screening in Heaven.

I watch these creepy movies with regularity when I need to feel Clare’s sorrows and how she let me take some of these sorrows from her. Thanks, babe. Even in the oddest, most uncomfotable ways, I always felt closer to you.