Although I only got to know you in one night, in that time period, we shared each others deepest secrets and hidden aspirations. Both of us grew in the wisdom we had to offer each other and I knew we would be friends for life. But that was not meant to be. Like a baby taken away from its mother's bosom, I admit I wailed when I couldn't be near you anymore.

Your only flaw was that you happened to be a bar. Yes, a bar, not the building I am too young to enjoy but the tangible counter and all its glory.

You came to me while I was volunteering for Christmas in April, and I will be damned if I ever forget the day. You were being discarded like a soiled overcoat, but I spotted you like a diamond in a rough while you sat in a backyard patio praying to the sun God and hoping for a savior. I do not claim to be the one who became that liberator and saved you from the clutches of a garbage truck, but once your life was placed in our hands and into the back of a Dodge Caravan, you whispered to me and I became entranced on your black coating.

Once bathed and given new finery, you stood in our room perched like a gargoyle surveying a new den, watching over and protecting the revelers within. We treated you like a God although it was us who should have been your God, and we danced around your enclave like a tribe performing a ceremonial rite to appease your holiness.

A gift that kept on giving, you bequeathed to us a nylon kite and a dated letter from 1978 which we planned to laminate and give immortality to by pasting on the surface of your sleek finish.

Until the hour of five, we basked in your glory and showered you with praise and spent time planning out your college career for the next three years. Through housing textbooks by day and necessities by night, you were going to be the haven for every lewd joke imaginable and becoming a sanctuary for all mankind to congregate. Yet, it was not meant to be.

When I awoke at the hour of two, your fate was already sealed and a sentence handed out. Please do not be angry with us. We worked hard to obtain a stay of execution, but all efforts were thwarted. Deportation precedings were underway, and there was nothing we could do. I ate one last meal on your counter top, hands extended on your padded armrest and feet firmly implanted against your footrest and wept.

Although you had only been with us for 14 priceless hours, what you gave me will never be forgotten, I will carry my head high knowing that you are still out there somewhere waiting for our reunion. Perhaps someday we will meet again. All I know is that you have gone to a better place: Turtle Creek.

God bless you and all your future patrons, and may you spread the love that we shared together to others forever and ever. You will be missed by all of us you helped to enlighten.

• Eulogy for a fallen comrade