We lost Piers Hayes, a dear member of our community today.
Any of you who visited Bowen Island would have met him at The Snug where he held court and almost certainly called you “Blue.” So many of us never had a name
when we walked through the door of the snug
but it was all the same to him;
he knew that you
would always respond if he just called you “Blue”
Blue
He was a blue eyed charmer
a maitre d’ for a whole community, a casual character that buzzed like a bee
from table to table,
knitting together strangers
with his self-deprecating humour, but with a laser focus on what he could do
to make the world a little less blue.
I heard him once tell the story
of how he left the azure skies of Africa, and shipped his family on the turquoise sea, and for years they saw every colour it could be: the greys and greens and dark blue deep,
storm tossed and washed in adventure, held in the currents that carried them between continents.
He never entered quietly
But he blew into a room
like a Salish Sea southeasterly
or hollered out hellos and bellowed greetings from behind the bar, meeting each customer as a friend, tending tender connections
The day he died, the rain was steely grey.
As if the blue had seeped out of the sea and the sky and pierced every heart that broke and every soul that cried with the news that he was gone.
He left us stories and affection
and a recognition that we will always remember how we belong.
