When I went to the Skokie Meet and Greet for Glee Live 2010, my friends and I couldn’t actually meet Cory and Naya. But we discovered that if we stuck our faces against the window (long after the signing had gone on, so the security had abandoned the window), we could see them both. Mainly Cory, because Naya was talking with people.

So we stared, and crowded, and were those terrible, annoying fans peering through the window. After gawking and freaking out about how sexy he was, Cory noticed us. He smiled, he waved. We all flipped out and frantically waved back. He just kept smiling, like we were honestly making his day. Then he pointed to the water bottle and gave us a thumbs up. We all laughed and gave a thumbs up back. It was the closest possible thing we could have with communicating with him without being VIP. So as stupid as it probably felt to him to point to that dumb smart water, it meant the world to us. Cory Monteith was reaching out to communicate with us.

Every time I saw him that day he was nothing but gracious and loving and patient. With every VIP meeting, when he and Naya came out for more pictures, as they waved goodbye in their car. It was obvious he never once took us for granted. And that chance to have our stupid water bottle “conversation” was worth that whole drive.