Coming Home
By the time work was completed, I was exhausted and still had not eaten. So I made dinner… which had my husband and I eating much later than we usually do.
I wanted to read my friend’s message but given the tired state and the late night hours, I chose to put it off until the next day. More importantly, I couldn’t ignore the nagging sensation that warned “Don’t read this just yet. You aren’t prepared for what’s inside.” And I wasn’t. Not one bit. Not the night it was sent and not the day I read it.
The last few weeks I have been walking around with a lump in my throat and a pit in my stomach which is an indicative sign that something extremely emotional is looming on the horizon. Something tragic is about to happen. I hate this feeling and I try my hardest to avoid it. To ignore its gravitational pull. To dismiss it. To shake it off in hopes that this reaction will cause whatever action to ultimately disappear. This never works though… because whatever usually comes crashing down, usually does. With or without me playing “You Can’t Catch Me.”
I also felt that because of how late it was, whatever was in that note would shake me to my very core aa well as keep me wide awake regardless of how sleepy I was. So I let the note stay there unopened until I was fully ready and alert to what what my gut had already been trying to say. I already knew this was going to be some sort of sad news. AND IT WAS. It was heartbreaking. It was shocking. It was mind numbing. It was something I-in a million years-never felt possible could happen.
My friend, a person I considered family, had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. My heart sank. I screamed, “No. No. No.” As if my yells and pleas would change the current trajectory? As if by projecting this emphatic disdain, I could make this truth turn out differently some how?
How could this be? This guy was like a fucking cat. He seemed to dodge every dodgy situation and every time he bounced back, which he most certainly always did-he made every single one of us question exactly what we were doing with our lives? I, like many, had been convinced he possessed some magic elixir for immortality. I, like many, was convinced he’d outlive us all.
I met my buddy through his brother, my college sweetheart. A relationship I fondly look back on and a guy that to this day, I still consider a good friend. We didn’t break up because something bad happened or we just fell out of love with one another! We just ended because our lives headed us in different directions but the love we had for each other never went away. It just changed (as it should have) over time. It morphed into friendship where it has remained for over a decade. My ex is happily married to an amazing woman I absolutely adore and respect and together they have created two beautiful children that are split images of her and him combined. He is and will forever be considered family and with that comes the extension that his wife and his children are family too and although we might not speak everyday or be as close as we once were, rest assured if I needed him, he would be there in a heartbeat and visa versa.
Just like his older brother-my dear and sweet friend that passed away.
My ex, his brother, and I have remained friends since the decade back when my ex and I were an item. They have supported my life, just as I have supported theirs and to know that despite us having a past, a friendship can still be had, says a lot about all of us. So when I heard the news, I was completely taken aback and utterly devastated. It felt like my own sibling had passed away unexpectedly. It felt like someone took a piece of my heart and ripped it out from my chest.
In the past three months, I have lost three people that I cared immensely about. A cousin, an aunt, and now my friend but this one hit differently though. Not because my aunt and cousin were less heartbreaking deaths but because my friend was healthy and young and not facing an impending death sentence unlike the other two. Both my cousin and aunt had been moved to hospice a few weeks before their passing. So there was time to say goodbye. There was a certain type of preparedness for what everyone knew was going to happen. My buddy and I just spoke the other day and no where in that chat was there an underlying message that “this is going to be our last conversation.” I, like his brother, his family members and many of his friends assumed there would be many more conversations to come. My buddy was only 43! Just two years older than I am.
The first words he ever said to me were, “Don’t fuck over my brother.” I took his request seriously and I loved his brutally honest approach to the people he surrounded himself with. I’m not the type to selfishly walk all over someone or cause someone pain so the one thing he asked of me wasn’t that hard of a task to tackle. Not to mention, a couple years before meeting his brother, I had finally let go of a relationship that was not only toxic but had me questioning my very own self-worth.
My friends’s brother showed me that men can be trusted and love is easy to give as well as to obtain. My friend’s brother gave me the type of relationship I was starving for. He was loyal, romantic, smart, funny, adventurous, and sweet. He made me feel protected and special and to this day, there has only been one other man since my ex that is exactly that same way and then some and that’s my husband. Don’t get me wrong, my ex and I didn’t have the most perfect relationship and the type of relationship we had, doesn’t compare to either of our marriages but if I could ever describe how almost perfect a relationship could be, both him and my husband would be the prime examples.
And sure, my husband and I have had our problems, we have gone through the ringer, we have questioned moving on but truth be told, many marriages go through the very same things and these bumps in the road only made us and our marriage stronger. The fact is though, had I not experienced this type of love way back when, I never would have continued to look for it in the coming years. I would have just settled for someone who wasn’t right for me. I was set up to date all the hot messes because that’s how my first love was and oh how I did after the ex and I split up. I dated the emotional basket case, the emotionally blocked, the noncommittal, and the possessive psycho one. I dated the guy that had nothing, the guy that had everything, and the guy that was never satisfied regardless. I dated the guy in the band. The bad boy, the nice guy, and somewhere in between. I dated the guy that never got over his ex and was never really into me. I dated the cheater, the snake and the guy who clearly needed counseling and some anger management classes. I DATED THEM ALL until I could not date a single one. I was convinced that the only committed relationship I would have, would be the one with my cats and to be perfectly honest, I was alright with that. If I couldn’t get what I had before, I wouldn’t take any of it. A few short months shy from this declaration, I stumbled across the guy who I inevitably would marry. I knew he was keeper when he dropped everything to be by my side when I was sent to the emergency room over an ovarian cyst rupturing. Much like my ex who stopped everything to swim upstream in a river to find a personal belonging I had lost. That type of loyalty is often never there.
This past weekend, I couldn’t help but revisit all the memories that involved my ex because many of them included his brother. When we would come home for holidays or just a weekend away from school, we stayed and/or hung out with his brother. Whenever there was a football game or a concert or just a bbq, his brother would come see us. He was a staple, he was always there and him and my ex were the epitome of best friends. A form of sibling love and closeness that most of us strived for but rarely ever got.
My friend had a spark. A raw energy and an unapologetic sense of self. He was who he was, take it or leave it and with that came the acceptance of people being the same. He enjoyed authenticity. He liked honesty and he never shied away from calling the human population out on its own bullshit. He had a sense of humor that lingered on the controversial side and he had a heart of gold that he refused to hide and be ashamed of. He had sass. He was a firecracker and he radiated a light that every single person saw and gravitated towards. He made folks feel validated, seen and heard and he made the void I sometimes felt I was sucked into, nonexistent.
My post before this one was all about acknowledging those in your life in the here and now, instead of waiting until they are gone. I never thought those words would have the meaning that they do now. My post was all about feeling this overwhelming loneliness when it came to human connections because I kept reaching out to individuals while they pushed that attention aside. The reality is, I am still convinced that 95% of the people in my life will never reciprocate the love I give to them. However, my friend was part of the 5% that always did. He quite frequently showed up. He was quick to respond. Our friendship wasn’t a waste of his time. When I sent my condolences to my ex and his family, my ex replied, “He loved you too” and I cried harder than I had when initially heard the news. It was real and knowing that someone loved me as I had loved him, spoke volumes. He was my brother through and through too. That night, I got a six pack and some whiskey. I got rip roaring drunk and continued to cry. I cried well until after the sun had come up and then finally crashed when my eyes were swollen shut. Only to wake up feeling very much the same way I had the day before except this time, a hangover was on top of the emotional rollercoaster I was on.
I laid in bed all day. Trying to recoup, trying to make the tears subside. Trying to hide from the reality and make sense of what I was now being forced to accept. The headache might have gone away but the nausea and flowing river coming from my eye sockets sustained. This one hurts. This one stings. And this one is going to burn for a while and why oh why, are all the good ones dying?
Why does the grim reaper choose whom he chooses? Why was it my friend instead of the hateful bastard down the street? Why did this happen to him and not the rapist that hasn’t gotten caught? Why did my friend’s life get cut short and not the person who went on a killing spree? Where is the fairness on who gets plucked off and who gets to remain? And before you say, “Life isn’t fair.” I am fully aware of this ugly fact. Life isn’t at all fair sometime but that’s not the answer I really want right now. It’s not the explanation I want to hear. I want something more tangible. I want something that doesn’t say, “Yay. The bad guys win again.” I want answers. I want some sort of semblance. I want something better than, “Life isn’t fair.”
I want to run to my friend and stop time and alter reality. I want to go back to a few days ago when my friend was still here. I want to change the current circumstances. I want to wave a magic wand and make my friend reappear… “Bippity boppity boo, your death is no longer true.”
But, I can’t and that sucks and I hate it and this is how things are now. The world is less one unforgettable and unique soul and we are left to mourn and memorialize my friend that is gone. We are left with processing and proper procedures, when all we want to do is scream. We are left will all the dreaded questions of why things like this happen? We are left in shock and in pain. We are left alone without you noticing us here.
Rest easy, my sweet and vivacious friend. Your heart was infectious, your soul monumental, and your friendship appreciated. Your memory will live on and when you get to your next life-remember who were in this one: a rare type of gem that grabbed life by the balls and experienced everyone and everything to the fullest. We love you and you will greatly be missed.
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