"He persevered and remounted his horse 11 times after manic episodes, but with so many physical problems related to his medicines' side effects, he could not see a dignified or purposeful way forward. The repeated trauma of incarceration and restraints was too much to stand for the wild bird inside him and had much to do with the poisonous alcohol he took for the pain. I was with him for a full year in his suffering and could not but marvel at his courage and his continued consideration for others. While he was sloppy about lots of life’s requirements for discipline, he lived in an artistic and creative universe that was kind of oblivious to these norms. He wanted, if able to carry on, to use his art to help others in pain with mental disease and its consequences. He went to the Falls both as a portal to another place without the pain and as a purifying and dramatic exit that would leave his parents and friends without a mess and uncertainty about his ownership of a carefully planned decision. Niagara was his barricade or the breach he stormed."

- Gil Leaf