Amy Honikman

First off, anyone who knew Amy, would know how much she would hate this website. She absolutely hated attention, especially if it was positive. Ironically, this will probably the easiest time any of us have in celebrating Amy, talking about some of her great qualities. She's not here to tell us to shut up. Around this time of year, we had an annual tradition of going to the latest Star Wars movie at the Embassy Cinema off Moody street in Waltham for the sole purpose of making fun of it. But four years ago, halfway through The Last Jedi, things turned serious when a large group of fatheirs, a kind of space dog-hybrid, were freed from their cages and stampeded out into the galaxy while being chased by the bad guys. While I was laughing at the cheesiness and obviousness of the CGI, Amy covered her eyes with her hand and asked me to tell her when the scene was over. Yes, she couldn't even stand the thought of fake, made up, computer enhanced space-horses potentially coming into harm's way. That's how big her heart was, how much she loved animals. Of course, I made fun of her for that. And she laughed at that too. Which comes to her sense of humor. There was nothing I liked better about her. We shared our love of Arrested Development, Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Mike Birbiglia, Mitch Hedberg, and that was just the light stuff. But the things that made us laugh the hardest, are things I cannot repeat here or anywhere really. Suffice it to say, it was dark, inappropriate, way way over the line, and had we shared it with anyone else, it probably would have gotten us cancelled ten years ago, way before being canceled was cool. Of course, because we could laugh about dark things, we could also talk about dark things, things like bouts of loneliness and depression, times we didn't feel great about ourselves, times we felt we weren't exactly crushing life, weekends we spent maybe sleeping way too much and eating way too many dots. Things that everyone experiences from time to time, but largely like to keep to themselves. We talked about all of it. We listened to all of it. We laughed at ourselves and each other. I highly recommend everyone to have a friend or two like that, a friend you are not embarrassed to absolutely be yourself with. This was a gift that Amy had and one she shared equally with everybody in her life. We are all blessed to have experienced it. Amy was extremely generous in other ways too. We all know she took in rescues, wanted to pay for meals even if she was short on cash, let certain people store furniture in her basement while they tried to figure out their life. But like all truly generous people, she was also extraordinarily gracious. One Christmas eve years ago, her car was having problems, and she didn't know how she was going to get to the dog shelter in Sudbury where she was volunteering that night. When I offered to drive her, she was so tickled and thankful, it was as if I was driving to a dealership to buy her a new car. So what was just a simple favor, once again turned into another act of Amy's generosity, for making me feel like a million bucks for helping her. The last anecdote I'll share is something Amy shared with me one of the last times I saw her. She was telling me about her mother Elaine, who suffers from Alzheimer's. It had gotten to a point that Elaine did not who this young woman was who kept showing up to help her. After their latest time together, Elaine had taken Amy aside to thank her. She looked deep into her eyes and told Amy that she was so kind to help her, that her mom must be very proud of her. Indeed she is. Indeed we all are. Amy, my fellow Umass Boston deplorable, you loveable, generous hot mess, you will be greatly, greatly, missed.