Patrick Swayze died today at the age of 57, and for an hour or so after reading this news online, I continued to work without much change in my overall mood.
Then my phone vibrated with a text from the Sarge, and it was all put in perspective. “It just hit me now,” he wrote, “Bodhi is gone.” For the next few minutes, I stared blankly into the wall next to me. Sure, part of me knew that Bodhi died at the end of Point Break, when Johnny Utah released him to meet his maker at the hands of a superwave. But everytime I saw Patrick Swayze, he was Bodhi to me.
Sure, millions of grown-up girls are mourning the loss of the star of Dirty Dancing, and plenty of others the loss of Sam Wheat from Ghost. But for guys and girls whose only dream has been to keep it rad and keep it real, today is a day of mourning for the great Bodhi.
Swayze was a dancer, he was a singer, he was an outsider (shout out to S.E Hinton). He was a Chippendale with a great body, though his dance moves were lacking when compared to the ultimate Chippendale, Chris Farley.
But most of all, he was a surfer. He was the Bodhisattva, a bank robbing surfer who lived by his own code of ethics, shunning just getting radical and instead embracing the spiritual side of surfing.
"If you want the ultimate, you've got to be willing to pay the ultimate price. It's not tragic to die doing what you love. " - Bodhi
John Stamos Fever 
It being the last calendar weekend of the summer I made a trip to the beach on sunday. While the waves were practically non-existent my sis and I still busted out the surf boards. As I floated there in the water, waiting for the waves that would not come, I couldn’t help but think what would Bodhi do in this situation. Sure he may have gone skydiving or robbed a bank but I think sometimes he would have just sat there staring out to sea. Would he have been upset about the lack of waves? I don’t think so. I think he would have enjoyed the sun in his face, the wind in his hair, and the feel of the ocean current. I know I did. And I know all that waiting made catching that last tiny ride that much sweeter. That one was for Bodhi.